Raymond Snoddy on media: Look to Liverpool for secrets of press success

There are, however, anomalies, particularly in the case of bigger regional dailies, which seemed for a while to be able to do little about falling circulations. Here there is a useful contrast in the tales of two cities - Birmingham and Liverpool. Last month's official circulation figures showed that the Liverpool Daily Post increased its circulation by 4.2% year-on-year, while the Birmingham Evening Mail was down 10.5%, a slide that cost editor Roger Borrell his job.

The comparisons are not, of course, direct. The cities are different.

The Daily Post is a morning title and has recently been relaunched, while the Evening Mail has been hit by a much tougher line on bulk sales and the difficulties of reaching a growing ethnic minority population.

Despite these difficulties, is there a case for studying in detail the performance of the two papers to see whether it is possible to isolate some of the elements that make the difference between success and failure?

Critics have blamed the decline of the Birmingham title on waves of cost-cutting under a number of different ownership structures and the declining number of journalists on the paper. Perhaps, but that is a strange argument, given that Trinity Mirror owns both the Liverpool Daily Post and the Birmingham Evening Mail, and surely cannot have such different standards for editorial investment.

Low pay in regional journalism is an undoubted scandal - one that could, over time, undermine the performance of the regional press. But again, common ownership makes pay an unlikely reason for such vast difference in achievement.

There is also the fact that Liverpool is undergoing something of a renaissance as a city, creating a greater sense of local pride. This may be helping sales of the local paper.

The search for a single answer in two such different circumstances is probably hopelessly utopian. But the Newspaper Society, which already encourages best practice, could take the lead by trying as far as possible to isolate factors more likely to lead to success and then encourage them.

Big newspaper groups compete with each other as businesses, but the geographical overlap between individual titles is limited. There is a clear case for being more generous in swapping examples of best practice so that the whole print sector can benefit. More competition from the electronic media is inevitable. The latest is a range of local BBC television news services for individual cities and counties, which will launch in the West Midlands, right on the Evening Mail's doorstep.

There seems to be a spirit of experimentation in the regional press.

As well as the move to tabloid format - now almost complete - publishers are looking carefully at how readers want to receive their newspapers and at what time of day they want to receive them. Advertisers also have to absorb the message that free readers are still readers. Anyone who doubts this has only to spend half an hour on the London Underground to watch Metro being devoured.

What is clear is that out of this, sometimes painful, period of experimentation, useful lessons will come. They are lessons that should be used to inform the entire regional newspaper industry. Who knows, some of the nationals might learn a thing or two as well.

30 SECONDS ON ... REGIONAL NEWSPAPERS

- According to The Newspaper Society, 85% of UK adults - totalling about 40m people - read a regional newspaper, compared with 70% who read national newspapers. About 30% of regional newspaper readers do not read a national daily.

- The industry employs 45,000 people, 12,000 of which are editorial staff.

- Regional papers offer the biggest print advertising medium in the country. It is the only medium to have seen increased adspend every year for the past 12 years.

- The UK has 1301 regional and local newspapers, the most common format being a free weekly (651).

- Readership of paid-for weeklies has risen nearly 15% over the past decade. The bestselling title in this sector is the Kent Messenger, which has a circulation of 57,450, according to ABC figures for July to December 2004.