Boycott The Evening Express

[Paulscoconutass]

A good game to play is check the articles and see how often they tie completely unrelated stories back to something local, my favourite ones go like...

... his father once owned a chipper in the north east.

... he once ate an Aberdeen Angus steak

... she is a supporter of the woodside 'ghosties' football club

... she once got a connecting flight to Scatsta from Aberdeen airport

... Their great, great, great grandparents were from the highlands

... etc

I've not bought a single issue of the paper as it NEVER has an upbeat front page that makes me want to pick it up. There'll always be a road smash / paedophile / blood stain / bruised pensioner / weapon / dangerous-looking domestic pet / crying baby / mangled bicycle / injured sports personality / damaged home / angry drunkard / that idiot stripper guy on the front with a sensational tagline involving the word's "Fear", "Terror", "Ordeal", "Murder" or something similar. The only exceptions are sun & snow - although my house has windows, so I can see that anyway.

[Guest Hobo]

Moray has the Northern Scot

Fife has The Courier

Grampian has the......???

[ca_gere]

I agree exactly with what you say - this is how the Evening Express is run.

I disagree entirely with how the Evening Express is run however. Surely, surely, the Evening Express can see that they are much more likely to sell more copies of their newspapers if they take more an interest in local artists? Lets face it, if they have an article about JLS in the paper, not even little teeny bopper girls are going to tell all their pals to go buy it cause theres a thing about JLS in it. <insert token blurb about internet/modern technology/unprecedented coverage etc> In essesence what I'm saying is that the demographic you talk about may be more interested in JLS, but they wont buy the paper JUST because JLS are in it, they'll buy the paper regardless.

If they were to cover a local gig every week with different bands, it could be worth 50-100 extra sales a week to them (taking an average of 4 bands per gig, mates buying it to see the photos/read the stories/previews/reviews) At the bottom end of that scale thats 2500 extra sales a year, topping out at 5000 odd.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but the JLS/other thing is covered in other newspapers and magazines constantly. People wont stop buying the evening cause its not in there. More people will buy it if local acts are.

if a touring band was to come up to aberdeen, fair enough, big preview/review of the gig. But if they have no relevance to the area, they should not favour them over local interest articles.

Fuck me, we even wrote the article and took the photos for them, for an event they are sponsoring!

(Generalisation warning!)...

Unfortunately the average reader of the EE couldn't care less about local music and will never go to a gig apart from Travis at the AECC. They see a picture of a celebrity on the front cover and buy the paper to get their daily fix of gossip, perhaps chortle at a funny story about a seagull eating crisps and tut at a junkie stabbing another junkie then they throw the paper away.

Local music fans are not a priority for the publishers because they do not represent a sizeable demographic. Tradesmen buying their butteries in the morning, mums on their way out of the supermarket... these are the type of people that have a real impact on circulation and the easiest way to get them buying the paper is to emulate ones they already read.

[framheim]

i buy the evening express every day because to read it cover to cover takes almost the exact amount of time it takes me to eat my lunch. it is undoubtably shit though.

i've gone through my arguments as to why i'd like to see them cover local music many many times before. it'll never happen. there's very little benefit to them for doing it.

[Lemonade]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonK770i/R8BC Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

I just buy it for the Dons news. I do read the rest of it as well tho.

[Bigsby]

i buy the evening express every day because to read it cover to cover takes almost the exact amount of time it takes me to eat my lunch. it is undoubtably shit though.

You should buy the Sun, it's cheaper and you get tits.

[Alan Cynic]

I also read the EE for the Dons news, and other local stuff, despite knowing it'll be badly reported. It never really recovered from when all the good journalists got sacked, and a bunch of yes-men hired to replace them.

Mind you, I don't totally join in with the Frank Gilfeather bashing, as he seems to be the only columnist on the EE who isn't afraid to get stuck into Donald Trump.

I'm beginning to look on Sandi Thom's input as a 'cult' thing. Maybe we should form a fanclub???

Even more sad.......I'd quite welcome a Sunday version of the EE/P&J, as the Herald and Scotland on Sunday are too Glagow/Edinburgh biased. Who cares what's happening in the Scottish Parliament when there's a roup at Turriff/fight in Finzean?

[MattJimF]

Even more sad.......I'd quite welcome a Sunday version of the EE/P&J, as the Herald and Scotland on Sunday are too Glagow/Edinburgh biased. Who cares what's happening in the Scottish Parliament when there's a roup at Turriff/fight in Finzean?

You should start reading the Sunday Post

[Scootray]

I also read the EE for the Dons news, and other local stuff, despite knowing it'll be badly reported. It never really recovered from when all the good journalists got sacked, and a bunch of yes-men hired to replace them.

Mind you, I don't totally join in with the Frank Gilfeather bashing, as he seems to be the only columnist on the EE who isn't afraid to get stuck into Donald Trump.

I'm beginning to look on Sandi Thom's input as a 'cult' thing. Maybe we should form a fanclub???

Even more sad.......I'd quite welcome a Sunday version of the EE/P&J, as the Herald and Scotland on Sunday are too Glagow/Edinburgh biased. Who cares what's happening in the Scottish Parliament when there's a roup at Turriff/fight in Finzean?

Someone from town who knows about Finzean? Jesus, well done sir.

[Bigsby]

Even more sad.......I'd quite welcome a Sunday version of the EE/P&J, as the Herald and Scotland on Sunday are too Glagow/Edinburgh biased. Who cares what's happening in the Scottish Parliament when there's a roup at Turriff/fight in Finzean?

Buy The Piper, but wait until Sunday to read it.

[Bigsby]

I'm beginning to look on Sandi Thom's input as a 'cult' thing.

I look on it as a 'cunt' thing.

[Scootray]

Buy The Piper, but wait until Sunday to read it.

The Piper is the mutt's nuts.

[Murdoch]

I think the only way I consistently got stuff in was cos I bugged the hell out of Marie-Claire till she succumbed and put stuff in. But, they just would not review anything. I was hoping for reviews of the clubnights to try and get the word out, but they don't review local bands and they don't review clubnights (that's what I was told anyway).

Well, seems to me this is an horrendous way to treat someone who actually seems to have helped you out, giving you column space in a local newspaper. Such warm gratitude will no doubt stand you in good stead for future favours........

I'm pretty certain the Evening Express has a demograpgic and a target audience. Anyone who has helped out the music scene in Aberdeen through this paper has done you all a favour. Anything not printed does not fit into a business plan, it's not rocket science, they don't owe any of you a favour. The Evening Express is not "Aberdeen-music.paper". Accept and move on. If you all have such verve and drive, start your own local fanzine promoting local bands. Wouldn't cost much, and would get your message out to those who you want to. Nobody reviewed my recent sterling performance at my midweek game of 5-aside football in the sporting section. it was an unbelievable 10 goal haul as well. For shame .........

Also Travis haven't played the AECC since 2002 whichever fuckstick wrote that.

[Scootray]

Thanks Rupert.

[Lemonade]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonK770i/R8BC Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Aren't you a ray of fucking sunshine?

[Edgar Graham]

I'm still waiting for the day a restaurant or take away gets a rating other than 7 or 8 out of 10.

[Bigsby]

I'm still waiting for the day a restaurant or take away gets a rating other than 7 or 8 out of 10.

And the bill, including a large coke and a glass of white wine, always comes to a very reasonable xx.xx.

[Alan Cynic]

Thanks for the piper suggestion. I spent many years reading the Kincardineshire Observer on a Monday. There was an ace section called 'Beyond the Howe' which you'd expect to feature world news (possibly filtered through a Laurencekirk viewpoint), but no....it usually had articles about Auchnagatt brownies coffee evenings etc Much better than the Herald/Scotland on Sunday. Now, if we could only get Sandi to move her column to the Piper we'd all be in clover

[Bigsby]

Thanks for the piper suggestion. I spent many years reading the Kincardineshire Observer on a Monday. There was an ace section called 'Beyond the Howe' which you'd expect to feature world news (possibly filtered through a Laurencekirk viewpoint), but no....it usually had articles about Auchnagatt brownies coffee evenings etc Much better than the Herald/Scotland on Sunday. Now, if we could only get Sandi to move her column to the Piper we'd all be in clover

Sadly the Kincardineshire Observer has gone downhill, they now just have a few pages at the start and end and then the bulk of the paper is just a reprint of the Mearns Leader.

[framheim]

Well, seems to me this is an horrendous way to treat someone who actually seems to have helped you out, giving you column space in a local newspaper. Such warm gratitude will no doubt stand you in good stead for future favours........

I'm pretty certain the Evening Express has a demograpgic and a target audience. Anyone who has helped out the music scene in Aberdeen through this paper has done you all a favour. Anything not printed does not fit into a business plan, it's not rocket science, they don't owe any of you a favour. The Evening Express is not "Aberdeen-music.paper". Accept and move on. If you all have such verve and drive, start your own local fanzine promoting local bands. Wouldn't cost much, and would get your message out to those who you want to. Nobody reviewed my recent sterling performance at my midweek game of 5-aside football in the sporting section. it was an unbelievable 10 goal haul as well. For shame .........

Also Travis haven't played the AECC since 2002 whichever fuckstick wrote that.

a better analogy would be with junior football which does receive coverage from aberdeen-journals. seeing as both junior/highland league and regular gigging bands are semi-professional.

five-a-side is akin to just jamming with your mates in the garage. be pretty stupid to want the EE to cover that.

[Guest Bob Double Jack]

I disagree entirely with how the Evening Express is run however. Surely, surely, the Evening Express can see that they are much more likely to sell more copies of their newspapers if they take more an interest in local artists? Lets face it, if they have an article about JLS in the paper, not even little teeny bopper girls are going to tell all their pals to go buy it cause theres a thing about JLS in it. <insert token blurb about internet/modern technology/unprecedented coverage etc> In essesence what I'm saying is that the demographic you talk about may be more interested in JLS, but they wont buy the paper JUST because JLS are in it, they'll buy the paper regardless.

If they were to cover a local gig every week with different bands, it could be worth 50-100 extra sales a week to them (taking an average of 4 bands per gig, mates buying it to see the photos/read the stories/previews/reviews) At the bottom end of that scale thats 2500 extra sales a year, topping out at 5000 odd.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but the JLS/other thing is covered in other newspapers and magazines constantly. People wont stop buying the evening cause its not in there. More people will buy it if local acts are.

if a touring band was to come up to aberdeen, fair enough, big preview/review of the gig. But if they have no relevance to the area, they should not favour them over local interest articles.

Fuck me, we even wrote the article and took the photos for them, for an event they are sponsoring!

i'm sorry to say that this is absolute cobblers - i worked for them for 11 years, and there were 6 or 7 topics that sold enough papers to justify the coverage - and still do.

Tragic deaths (Diana; 9/11; etc)

Tragic local deaths (car crash victims/ bike crash victims)

Bypass

Trump (though most people sick of hearing about it now)

Dons sacking managers / beating old firm

Happy Tots photo supplements

oh,and local murders as well.

And that literally is it. The percentage of the readership that gives a toss about local bands will do most of their digging on the internet on sites like this / myspace / etc.

There's an old cliche that bad news sells papers and it is 100% true. The biggest selling days for newpapers bar none over the last 20 years have been Piper Alpha / Dunblane massacre / Diana / September 11th- thats probably the main ones, apologies if I've missed any out. These stories justified the coverage in the return for sales - i remember the Evening Express sold 4500 extra copies in a day when the Twin Towers got destroyed.

I'm not trying to be negative, but the reason it's not covered in such great depth is because it does genuinely have very limited interest for their readership.

And i'm not joking about the tots photo supplement - when this started up a few years ago, i did mention that "tot" has a different meaning here......it was ignored.

[Elizabeth]

Evening Express put the story of one of the girls in my year being in a DIY phone-porno, and it circulating around the school/her mum, on the front page.

[Dave-IRL]

i'm sorry to say that this is absolute cobblers

I'm sorry you feel like that but clearly you havent really understood what I'm saying.

I completely understand that covering local bands isnt going to transform the distribution figures, and nobody should be so naive as to think it will. However, it is a local paper and if local music is covered, it will sell more copies than just covering mind-numbing pop. It may only be a small figure, but over a period local bands will generate more sales over and above the regular buyers than what is currently covered. Clearly it doesnt make enough of a difference for the EE to justify having a dedicated local band section so maybe I'm misguided but I feel my logic is pretty sound.

However my biggest gripe has already been touched on earlier. They are sponsoring Wizard festival; we were running a Wizard event; we wrote the article and took all the photographs etc for them. But they STILL published a story about JLS rather than the local artists. Had our event featured a signed act or anyone remotely famous, it would have received full bifter coverage of that I have no doubt. Shambles.

[Alan Cynic]

Wizard fest should've made sure that one band at least had a song about Donald Trump being murdered by Mark McGhee because of his involvement in Princess Di's murder. This would have ensured coverage

[Dave-IRL]

Wizard fest should've made sure that one band at least had a song about Donald Trump being murdered by Mark McGhee because of his involvement in Princess Di's murder. This would have ensured coverage

I'm on it! We're playing the Snafu Stage at 1pm on the Saturday if anyone wants to hear it...

It's called "Trumpey Murdered Muttley Cause he Poisoned Henri Paul"