Allister Heath - Editor, City AM Tuesday 8 June 2010

There was a strong turnout for the meeting. Allister started out saying he would cover three key areas namely:

• Overview of City AM
• Viability of free media and the future
• His views on the outlook for the UK economy

City AM

• The paper is aggressively news driven and will be 5 years old in September.
• Distribution is now105,000 copies per day, 55% of which are within square mile.
• There is now a three-pronged distribution strategy in place:
  - stations at start of commuter journeys
  - destination stations in City and central London
  - delivery direct to major offices
• They hope to increase distribution by up to 50% over the next 2 years as demand currently outstrips supply
• Allister is looking to allocate more space to politics, comment and campaigning (eg current anti-CGT increase) in future.
• The paper has come through the recession very well and 2010 to date has seen promising increase in advertising revenue.
• Targeted at professionals in private business.
• Currently 28 journalists writing four sections - News, Investment, Lifestyle, Sport
• Journalists now have good access to senior people in politics and business.
• The working day at City AM:
  • content of paper uploaded to website around 6am, followed by breaking news stories
  • 10 am Newsdesk starts work
  • 11am Editorial Conference
  • Reporting and writing goes on throughout the evening
  • Publication goes to press 1.15am/1:30am

Free media

• Allister stressed that free papers can be profitable if they are high quality, specialist and production costs are low. The paper is expected to be in profit this year.
• City AM has concentrated distribution, low cost production and aspirational, relatively wealthy readers which are proving highly attractive to advertisers.
• Do not charge for website and aiming to do more digital distribution for Blackberry, iPad etc.

Views on the Economy

• Allister expressed his personal view that he felt that the recession was over and the UK economy was likely to show sluggish growth, probably around 1.5%, over the next few years.
• However he was very aware that there are major risks which could derail this scenario including a continuation of the backlash against business and the City, a Eurozone implosion and other major geo-political "black swan" events which the economy couldn't withstand.

Questions

There followed a lively and diverse Q&A session from the audience with the following Qs put to Allister:

• expansion plans (other centres in the UK as well as internationally)
• City AM's involvement in conferences and training
• Coverage of insurance markets
• Future of PPP industry
• Coverage of smaller companies
• Competitiveness of London as a financial centre

Anne Gilding, Communications Consultant specialises in financial services. Anne is currently working on institutional communications at F&C Asset Management having previously spent over five years as Head of PR and Internal Communications at GAM.