Newspapers have a cunning plan to stay relevant in the digital age

John Lloyd is the producer of Not the Nine O’Clock News, Spitting Image, Blackadder, QI and many other hit shows.

In the Seventies and Eighties, when I ran The News Quiz, Not The Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image, I used to buy all the newspapers every day. These days, working on QI, I spend my week filleting encyclopaedias, and it feels like I only look at the papers at the weekend.

Some people have written off newspapers completely. “They’re outdated, they lose money, nobody reads them any more,” the doom-mongers say. “I can get all I need from Google, goodbye.”

But, when I think about it, I know that’s not true. When I travel on the Tube, I pick up the free Evening Standard. I subscribe to the Daily Telegraph online, get it on email several times a day, and I’ve got the Guardian on my phone.

So when Newsworks, the marketing body for the national press, asked me to make a film about newspapers, I was happy to help — with the support of producer Stephen Gash of Qi Commercials and director Steve Kemsley of Sassy Films.

It was simply done. I interviewed the editors of Britain’s national newspapers, and Steve shot and cut the footage into a racy, informative package. In the process, I met some of the most intelligent, passionate and thoughtful people I’ve ever come across: it’s no wonder (recent events aside) that Britain has the finest press in the world.

Knocked sideways by the trauma of the phone-hacking scandal and galvanised by falling circulations and the migration of ad revenues online, the talented men and women of the Fourth Estate have begun to reinvent themselves radically. They are multi-media newsbrands — not mere newspapers any more — transforming the way we access and consume the news.

These newsbrands are extraordinarily effective, reaching 42 million people in the UK each month, even more than Google, which reaches 39 million. There are 11.3 million people in this country who, just like me, get access to newspaper sites on their mobile, and 26 million who regularly get their news online.

Newsbrands reach an astonishing 93% of people earning more than £70,000 and 80% of young people every month.

The newspapers — whether in print, on digital media or on video — are very far from dead, and they’re keen to let you know. Which is why, starting this week, Newsworks has launched a national campaign that almost everyone in Britain will see.

Where? In the papers, of course.

Newsworks’ film can be seen at www.newsworks.org.uk