Have ye see the new weekender thingy

Davy Morley

I had to laugh my ass off when I saw the new weekender thingy the people are after bringing out to try to frighten off the Kilkenny Advertiser. Did ye see it. Leftovers from the People it seems. Seems they are getting heavy with the auctioneers around town as well to try to run the advertiser out of town. The cheek of them, the Scottish buggers. What this town needs is some real competition. They have abused their monpoly long enough. Long live the voice and this new one.

EKRIUQ

To be honest i wasn't very impressed with the Advertiser, I was expecting a paper like south tipp today not something like the free newspaper that was already in Kilkenny. It just appears to be a mercenary paper just lokking for advertisers money and not too pushed on content .And also its nearly impossible to find in shops outside Kilkenny.

Nightwish

The Advertiser, at least did their own story (although they ended up devoting about 9 pages to the only story in the paper). The Weekender is terrible, its just the "best" bits from the People, with a lot more estate agency pages.

thomson

I think, Dave, you seem to be on a few blogs bitching about the kkp. I'm glad to see you are being the big man and continuing the attitude without giving the Weekender a chance. I know a couple of people working on that, freelancers and staff, and they are all trying their best to make it interesting with the limited time and resources they have. Personally I don't like the Voice paper, but I can also see the merits of some of the work. I think the advertiser, while full of text, is low on content, but i respect the style of it and the thought their creative department put into the layout. I think you should try and be more discerning, whether or not the kkp ****ed you or your family over once, there are completely new people in there trying to win your readership, so they can attract ads, get paid and have some semblance of a life for a writer. I think you need to relax, take a deep breath and move on with your life.

IreJohn

nice one!!

Davy Morley

Fair point lads. No, the people havent done me or my family. I am a voice fan even though they pack too much into it and make the photos just too big. The first advertiser was too much politics but I hear they have only two staff writing in there at the mo. That's why i thought the people's offering would be so much better. I'd say the advertiser will get better by the week. The voice is still the best for content though. There are ads for jobs on the advertiser office window and I'd say watch out for it. It's not flash harry or anything like the voice's arrival and ads but that's the way they operate in galway too. Just do their job and get on with it. They are a nice bunch though. I went in to enquire about an ad and the atmosphere there is lovely.
However, there is another weekender above in Kildare or someplace a dead ringer for the kilkenny one. Still I think the people let themselves down with the weekender. They have a fine fine paid for paper why make a show of themselves with something that has a margin of about three inches around the side and whose two lead stories last weekend were taken from the bloody advertiser. As a local, I just feel let down by the team formerly known as our side.

dark overlord

I was in galway a few years ago and came across the Galway advertiser which was just a paper crammed with jobs and accomodation listings with a few whats going on sections. That is what the advertiser is as the name suggests a paper of advertisments which may interest the local people. the more media in the town the better covered we are and the more varying opinions we have now we have more papers than we know what to do with we need for somthing worth reading about to happen

thomson

I just wanted to add that there is also a big misconception about the kp's "monopoly" as mentioned in Dave's first piece.You are only monopolising something if you are actively keeping your competition out. The very fact the KP quoted the advertiser in it's first week of publication shows they are not petty. The fact that they have continuosly maintained silence as the Voice have poached staff, printed numerous letters from "anonymous" people saying how crap and evil the kp are, when i know for a fact the kp could print at least 20 letters every week complaining about the voice, all of these things show it is not that they are a monopoly, they are just a very mature, in years and experience, business, that just want to get on with things. I think we as readers need to respect the fact that sometimes it is slow news, they cant go around making stuff up, so if the issue is dull, it's dull, but you still have your sport, bereaavemnts, local notes, ads, cinema and gig listings. No one is saying they are the New York Times, we live in a rural society, in an essentially small community,it is just LOCAL news, and in essence, our thirst for the dirt is the negative thing here not the collective media's fault for over exaggerating stories to compensate for the lack of news. Believe me the newsrooms want the bigger story, its in their blood its their jobs and their passion. There are lazy gits who rely on file pieces and press releases, who wouldn't check out a story even if it only involved wheeling their little chair to the phone and asking one of their little spies who essentially do that persons job for free.The advertiser is not pretending to be a newspaper. It's a freesheet for classified ads. The weekender isn't a newspaper, its a brief update on what happened this week, and a detailed list of what's happening this weekend. The Voice is the tabloid of of the county, they only sell three thousand copies p/w and will be closing before the year is out as the group is to be sold off, similar to the kp and smg. Finally, there is a lot of bitching about FOUR PAPERS OH MY GOD ISN'T THAT SHOCKING etc...lads...two of them are free, and the others you either love or hate one of them. It hasn't and will not ever affect your wallet. Get over it. That's all for now!

thomson

"the more media in the town the better covered we are and the more varying opinions we have"

Thank you for being a sensible person.

Davy Morley

Hi guys, you are all very right and reasonable. Each paper will eventually find its own level. There may not be a market for them all but time will tell. The Advertiser is new, it looks like it will bring something diferent to kk and it will. However, dont be misled into thinking that we would have a weekender if the advertiser had not appeared on the horizon. My cousin is an auctioneer in town and he's getting free ads in it as long as he decides to stay out of the advertiser, so is that not abusing a monopoly position? The same tack has been deployed in Kildare so it is a johnson press thing and not a kilkennhy thing. But good luick to them all and do you really think the vocie will disapear this year. Who is bhuying them or will they just go broke. They must be losing abomb. About tne pages of ads and 3000 sales. That would close a 20 page paper let alone a 120 page one. Who owns themanyway?

thomson

they re ownedd by a conglomorate, they are being covered cost wise for the next three years, and are paying their senior staff a wealth. They all have garaunteed incomes for the next three years, but I think it that income may start coming from elsewhere as the advertisers start to shun them in favour of the old school kp and the two freebies. It just makes sense. Sad for all the younger columnists to hve been associated with it though

EKRIUQ

Okay I'm going to post from a advertisers view, I been advertising with the people for as long as I can remember and my parents before. And even before we had all these new papers, I always found the sales with the Kilkenny People and the advertising dept as helpful as possible.

I've never advertised with the Voice yet, although constant phone calls and tempting offers, but I don't think there paper is hitting the whole county and border villages the Jury's still out i might go with them but I hear the accounts dept are very strict which I sure is good practice but to a company who's been in business over 30 years its a bit much after 4 days the credit control ringing.But neverless not a bad paper.

Even though the advertiser has improved and its not a bad newspaper (I won;t say for a free newspaper I'm sure thats not what they want to hear) I can't seem to get it anywhere out side Kilkenny City, Sure I get one through the letterbox every week so far but untill I hear people actually talking about it because you'd be surprised how many people have'nt even heard about it!!. I'm afraid to apend my money on advertising and not getting an imapct I get from the people.

And to the weekender same problems as the advertiser with regards circulation but if they give good specials with the main paper and the weekender I'll probadly go with that.

That's all I have say and posters please use paragraphs, and full stops its giving me a headache

Purry Cat

Thomson,

I take it from your knowledgeable comments that you either work for the Kilkenny People or are related to somebody who does. Please allow me to make some observations.

The People Weekender is not full of "completely new people" and does not have "limited resources". Kindly stop doing the poor mouth on it. As it's produced by the Kilkenny People, the Weekender has considerable resources behind it. You make it sound like it's a noble enterprise staffed by penniless freelancers looking for "some semblance of a life", when the truth is that it's an attempt by the Kilkenny People to upset things for the Kilkenny Advertiser. This is something they're wholly entitled to do - it's called business. But don't make the Weekender out to be something that it's not.

Why wouldn't the Kilkenny People have "continuously maintained silence" over staff being poached by the Voice? What other course of action should they have taken? Journalists move from one paper to another the whole time. The papers don't run stories bemoaning their hard luck on losing staff.

You make good points about local communities and slow news.

If you have concrete evidence that the Voice will close before the end of the year and that it's selling 3,000 copies a week, you might be good enough to provide it. And no, rumours you might have heard in or from the Kilkenny People do not qualify as evidence!

Why would it be "sad for the younger columnists" to have been associated with the Voice? This is hypocritical nonsense of the highest order on your part. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's very good for aspiring journalists to get their bylines in a paper and put together a portfolio of their work. Seeing as you say that the more papers there are in Kilkenny the better, you should surely be delighted for ALL the young journalists who are getting the chance to write in local papers in the area at the moment, whatever the future may hold.

thomson

Hi Purry,
No i dont work for them or does anyone I know, I live in Cork but come up on a regular basis. I work in IT. I was defending the KP because I feel it was getting totally knocked back continuosly. Apologies if I offended you. I stand by what I said about the Voice, it has hurt members of my family tremenduously, and I don't see it as a good addition. I do like the advertiser though.

Thanks for your comments, and I hope I'm wrong about the Voice closing for the sake of people's jobs,

Regards
Tommo

Purry Cat

No problem at all, sir!