Media: Tartan: it's the colour of money

The Scots love their newspapers. But are they passionate enough for another Sunday title?; The Scottish market flourishes while sales of papers south of the border shrivel

In the good old Fifties, as myth now has it, competition between newspapers in Scotland was so keen that rival reporters would slash each others tyres to steal a yard in the pursuit of a hot story or to ensure that they were first back to the office with their copy.

In recent years that cut-throat sense of competition has returned to the Scottish media scene, hostilities between rival titles deteriorating virtually into all-out war.

Things began to hot up in the mid-Eighties when The Sun became the first London-based paper to set up a separate operation in Glasgow. Relations between it and the Scottish Daily Record - whose virtual monopoly of the marketplace had made it fat and complacent - quickly turned ugly.

Rival editors traded insults; The Sun even had its logo projected on to the wall of the Record's headquarters. There was no end to The Sun's zeal in its battle to win Scottish hearts. This brave defender of British sovereignty against an evil Europe even came out for Scottish independence just before the country's devolution vote.

The Daily Mail, Express and Mirror have all followed The Sun north to exploit a marketplace which, strangely, continues to flourish while sales of newspapers south of the border shrivel. And now the temperature is set to rise again with the coming of Scotland's own parliament in May, the launch of a new home-grown newspaper - the Sunday Herald - and the beefing-up of the Scottish operations of English-based papers, including The Telegraph, Times, Guardian and Independent as well as the tabloids.

These are dizzy, breathless times. The question now is whether the new investments - particularly the substantial sums being sunk into the Sunday Herald by the Scottish Media Group - will bear fruit.

The early investments were less risky. The Sun and those who followed it north wanted a slice of the UK's only booming media market. While 61 per cent of British people buy a Sunday paper, the Scottish figure is 76 per cent. For dailies the figures are 55 per cent for the UK and 65 per cent for Scotland.

Views differ as to why Scots continue to buy more papers. "People just read more," says Alf Young, deputy editor of the Glasgow-based Herald, soon to launch a sister Sunday. "It's a cultural thing and has been for as long as I can remember."

Jim Seaton, the former editor of the Edinburgh-based Scotsman, suspects it is to do with the enduring Scottish faith in education; others say that a better education system has produced a more literate population and one with a greater interest in politics than the others that make up the UK.

Scottish media analysts are less romantic. "There are a number of reasons, but the primary one is a fanatical attachment to sport - particularly football," says Barbara Moyses, of the Edinburgh-based media buying agency, Feather Brooksbank. "On Sundays and Mondays Scottish men often buy more than one paper to get different views of their teams."

Ms Moyses also points out that Scotland is "not one culture and the broadsheets here have always reflected that. There is a west coast culture - outgoing, glitzy and left-wing. Then there is an east coast culture, more restrained and middle-class. Then there is the culture of the northern cities and the Highlands..." The upshot is multiple buying on a daily basis.

Whatever the reasons - Robin Jack, of Faulds advertising agency, suggests that Scottish media consumption may have everything to do with the appalling weather - the post-parliamentary expansion now being banked on is less certain than the one that went before.

"The nature of the beast will change," says Ian McLaren, deputy editor of the Scottish Daily Mail, who, like every other editor, is recruiting for the expected boom as a new politics takes hold.

"At present we have appointed a political editor for Scotland and a political correspondent but we will probably need more as the agenda from the Scottish parliament develops. There will be less and less coming out of Westminster that is of interest to Scottish readers."

The reality is that all the English-based titles that have fought hard over the last decade for their slice of the Scottish market will have to provide for the new Scottish public interest or face losing their place.

But is this really the time to launch a new home-grown title? There has been no shortage of dark mutterings and dour predictions about the Glasgow- based Scottish Media Group's announcement last year that it would launch the Sunday Herald this year.

Some say it is a massive miscalculation, particularly as its main rival, the Edinburgh-based Scotsman Publication's Scotland on Sunday, is selling more than its most optimistic founders would have predicted at its launch more than a decade ago; in the last period for which figures are available -July to December 1998 - the average sale was 125,321, compared to 122,816 for January to June.

Ironically, Andrew Jaspan, who can take most of the credit for Scotland on Sunday's success, has been recruited as the Sunday Herald editor. However, some analysts believe that his creation has grown too strong to topple.

"It's a strange decision to launch the Sunday Herald," says Mr Seaton. "It's very late for the Scottish Media Group to launch a rival to Scotland on Sunday, which is now firmly established and extremely successful. And it's very strange to announce it well in advance and give the opposition so much warning."

The greatest irony, says Mr Seaton, is that Mr Jaspan's biggest achievement with Scotland on Sunday was, perhaps, to shatter the traditional east coast/west coast divide. Under him, the Edinburgh title also became popular in Glasgow. The Sunday Herald is up against a rival not just popular on the opposite coast but in its own backyard.

One observer is more optimistic. The new paper might still find a place in the buoyant market, he says, particularly if it is younger, more fashionable, and more arty than its rival, as Mr Jaspan has promised. A market that bucks the national trend has already managed to accommodate so many newcomers. Why not this one?

Andrew Neil is editor-in-chief of `The Scotsman', which, along with the `Edinburgh Evening News' and `Scotland on Sunday', is part of the Scotsman Publications group owned by the Barclay Brothers

Martin Clarke is editor of the `Daily Record', one of several titles owned by the Mirror Group in Scotland, including the Scottish `Mirror', the `Sunday Mail', and the weekly `Glaswegian'. It also has a stake in the Scottish Media Group

Andrew Jaspan is working on the launch of a new Sunday title for the Scottish Media Group which owns the `Daily Herald', the `Evening Times' and Caledonian Magazines. SMG also owns Scottish Television and Grampian Television and STV Enterprises, the production arm of STV