In a comment supporting the News Media Association’s Journalism Matters campaign, the Prime Minister said his government would always defend local news, “work with you and support what you do day in day out.”
On the final day of the licensing reform consultation, which closes at midday today, NMA chief executive Owen Meredith said: “Only yesterday, for our Journalism Matters campaign, the Prime Minister promised to support the local news sector. A good place to start would be abandoning the highly misguided plans to remove alcohol licensing notices from local newspapers, which would do nothing to help the hospitality sector while damaging the public right to know.”
During the consultation, pub landlords and organisations such as CAMRA have spoken out against the plans to axe alcohol licensing notices, warning that they would do nothing to help venues, calling instead for meaningful interventions in areas such as business rates and VAT.
The Advertising Association, the trade body for the UK advertising sector, also weighed in with its concerns today. Stephen Woodford, CEO, Advertising Association, said: “Advertising plays a vital role in supporting trusted journalism, ensuring communities have access to important public information.
“The statutory requirement to publish alcohol licensing notices in printed local newspapers is a key part of upholding the public’s right to know. We would urge the government to recognise the unique value that advertising and local news media brings in keeping the public informed as part of the democratic process.”
For its consultation submission, the NMA says it commissioned Market Research Society-accredited Yonder Data Solutions to conduct Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing of narrow internet users. This research was undertaken to understand how removing alcohol licensing notices from local papers would impact upon this important group, which makes up more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all internet users.
Respondents cited giving residents a chance to voice concerns or objections and preventing potential issues such as noise, alcohol-related violence or antisocial behaviour (both 93 per cent) as their top reasons for publicising alcohol licensing notices. Just two per cent of respondents said publicising alcohol licensing notices was not important.
Respondents stated that print local newspapers (31 per cent) were the information source where they most expected to see alcohol licensing notices, followed by printed mailouts delivered to their home (19 per cent), posted near where the change will happen, eg, the development site (18 per cent), followed by a variety of other digital and offline sources.
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