Economic knives sharpening for Adelaide

The August national newspaper circulation figures were very bad. Fairfax is in deep, deep trouble and News Corp is not far behind it.

The Advertiser's (Monday to Friday) circulation slipped 10 per cent to 155,635 of newspapers 'sold'. The reason I parenthesis 'sold' is that during the football season, more than 10,000 newspapers were hurled off a back of a truck at AAMI Stadium. The Sunday Mail has fallen by 9.3 percent to 246,007 copies sold.

The Advertiser has been trending down about 4 per cent year-on-year but a fall of 10 percent is unprecedented. One explanation may be the migration of readers to the digital form. If though, the 10 percent fall is a true figure, and there are no other explanations (such as sun spots, alien invasions, etc) for the decline except that the public has given print the 'heave ho', then The Advertiser may fold within three years. The tipping point is when production costs cannot be balanced against projected revenue. Will the digital lifeboat float? That remains to be seen.

I half expect Murdoch will divest himself of his newspapers over the next few years and focus on satellite media and entertainment. That may leave Adelaide without a daily newspaper.

Unlike Cassandra, I do not believe the future is written in stone. Fighting back against the forces of economic and social decay requires brave action. Not every one will like it but the time for 'pie in the sky' schemes is over. For Adelaide, the future is already here.

Remedies

• Massive advertising and PR push in Europe and UK for businessmen and women with capital and new ideas to emigrate. While the SA strategic plan calls for population increases, the figures are generic. This needs action now.
• Slash land taxes across the board.
• Incentives for CBD employers to start car pools and institute working from home one day a week. Put the onus back on organisations to create car pools.
• Employers to ensure graduates in specific high demand areas are hired through an ‘indenture’ scheme. Merge the professions with the training.
• Stop further expansion North and South of the city and build apartments in the CBD to 14 floors. At the same time, merge North Adelaide with the City of Prospect Council.
• Throw open unleased office space to IT, games graduates and artists, to start businesses.
• Customer service training for all: speed, accuracy and courtesy.
• Re open SA’s trade offices in India and China. They should be staffed by people with business and marketing backgrounds with annual KPIs to meet.
• In fill development housing in City of Marion and City of Charles Sturt.
• Massive replanting of trees in western and northern suburbs.
• Focus government departments on implementation phase not planning. For 20 years state government have both created and been inundated by studies and reports. Now is the time to act.
• Merge Adelaide and Uni SA and entice more small universities to establish shop fronts in SA but must do practical research. Torrens University (Laureate) will begin trading in 2014. How they fare remains to be seen but their model of bringing students from offshore for a semester to study in Adelaide is unique and enterprising.
• Ramp up Education Adelaide by giving it a $3 million per year operating budget. The international education industry poured $863 million into the South Australian economy in 2011/12 (ABS). It accounts for more than 6000 local jobs and is the state’s largest service sector export. The state needs to get behind the international student drive.
• Top ten percent international students get residency status.
• Tax holidays for international IT organisations and banks to set up in Adelaide.