PUBLISHING a newspaper is an expensive business. Journalists have to be hired and the big names whom readers want cost money. Newsprint is an increasingly expensive product. Newspaper publishing fixed costs are cruelly high.
To establish a title in the marketplace, money has to be spent on promotion. Quality newspapers cost a great deal to produce, but the hope is that readers with money to spend are attracted and they, in turn, will attract lucrative advertising.
The Sunday Tribune has not been able to do enough of this. It has not been able to sell itself, hire the best and the brightest, and it has failed to attract new readers.
Last week its editor of just over two years, Peter Murtagh, resigned. The short resignation statement indicated it was lack of resources which had forced him to leave. Behind that statement, with all its protestations of amicability between Murtagh and the board, is a tale of frustration and promise unfulfilled.
Murtagh (43), came from the Guardian where he had been home news editor and a deputy foreign editor, and a member of the Sunday Times Insight team. Before that he was security correspondent with The Irish Times.
He was appointed editor of the Sunday Tribune four months after the dramatic dismissal of the former editor, Vincent Browne who was fired by the board and immediately escorted to his office to clear out his desk.
Murtagh's brief was to take the paper back to where it had once been, making a profit and selling over 100,000 copies a week. In the two years he was editor, the circulation continued to fall, though operating losses are believed to have been reduced from £45 000 a week to about £20,000 a week. Losses now stand at about £7 million.
Murtagh spoke at the time of the Tribune's strengths, that it was a serious Irish paper, not a British one with some Irish contributions. It dealt seriously with politics. Similar views have been expressed by the acting editor, Helen Callanan.
However, in the period that Murtagh was editor, the Sunday Times, the competitor to which he was alluding, has increased its sales to over 66,000, according to the last audited figures. Another possible competitor is waiting in the wings - The Irish Times has expressed interest in publishing a Sunday edition.
The Tribune's last official circulation figures were 82,569 up to December 1995. However, it is believed they will be down again for the first six months of this year to around 79,000.
The Tribune last recorded a circulation figure of over 100,000 in 1990. It was also around that time the paper recorded losses after the expensive collapse of the free sheet, the Dublin Tribune, which was published by the company.
At that time, Independent Newspapers bought a 29.9 per cent share. It was later refused permission to increase its holding when the then Minister, Des O'Malley, referred it to the Competitions Authority. Since then Independent Newspapers has supported the paper with loan capital.
Depending whom you talk to, the Independent is either drip feeding the Tribune to keep competitors from challenging the Sunday Independent, or it is supporting it.
No editor of the Tribune can expect enough money up front for planning and marketing. The best he or she can expect is that losses will be looked after and the newspaper will still be alive so long as it can do what Independent Newspapers wants, which is to supply some block to the ambitions in Ireland of the Sunday Times. That is the drip feed theory.
The Tribune is still providing a block to the Sunday Times to some extent. If it closed, nearly 80,000 sales would be available, which would probably push the Sunday Times up to 100,000 copies, making the Irish edition viable. Keeping that sort of competition at bay would probably justify the Independent's investment in the Tribune.
However, it is also believed Independent Newspapers is convinced the Sunday Times will cut its price, making it even more attractive to Irish readers.
It is believed the Tribune will continue to be drip fed by Independent Newspapers. Liam Healy, one of the Independent's directors on the Tribune board, has said on many occasions it is committed to supporting the Tribune and to helping it turn around.
How far Independent Newspapers would want the Tribune to turn around is questionable, say some observers. It would be politically difficult to pull the plug and force the Tribune to close. At the same time, it would hardly be good business to fund a paper which was providing real competition to the Sunday Independent.
Murtagh would probably not have lasted much longer had he not resigned. One source said no one reneged on any promises made when he was appointed and he was aware of the budgetary position.
The paper just continued to lose readers and journalists. Some days its newsroom was populated by students and people on work experience. Of late, the Tribune has not been the newspaper young journalists aspired to join. It was a stepping stone to somewhere else. This week the Tribune lost another two journalists.
Ms Liz Allen is going to the Sunday Independent as crime correspondent, succeeding Veronica Guerin, and political columnist Joe Joyce, a close friend of Murtagh, is also leaving.
However, the political correspondent, Stephen Collins, is known to have resisted an offer from the Sunday Times. The paper also retains Ed Moloney, one of the foremost reporters on Northern Ireland.
Whoever takes over as editor, whether it is the present deputy editor, Helen Callanan (28), or someone else, that person will have the same resources as Murtagh, including about £5,000 a week for marketing.
Who will succeed Murtagh is not known. Yesterday, Independent Newspapers refused to make any comment concerning the Sunday Tribune and the chairman, Mr Gordon Colleary, was out of the country and unavailable for comment.
Callanan (28), from Bandon, Co Cork, was appointed deputy editor about a month ago and is clearly in a well positioned to follow Murtagh. It is also believed she is favoured by the non Independent directors. She has been in journalism for three years and says, as acting editor, that she has plans for the paper. Editing a paper is not just about resources, she says, but direction as well. She has few complaints about resources.
The Tribune was at its best in the 1980s, she says, when it was staffed by young enthusiastic journalists who were hard working, optimistic and would kill themselves for their paper. That is what she would like to recreate.