The NFRN statement says: “According to the PDF’s own quarterly report, just 18 calls were made to the Press Distribution Review Panel (the Press Distribution Forum’s complaints mechanism) during the period January to March 2011.
How many of these calls related to failures of the Industry Charter Standards and how many complaints were satisfactorily resolved is not revealed – yet surely, for any self-regulatory mechanism worthy of the name, these statistics are fundamental in determining whether the process is working or not.
With such minute numbers, we are, therefore, left to conclude that retailers have given the PDF a massive thumbs down, and, as a self-regulatory mechanism for the news industry, it can only be described as a failure.
Such comments were very much the mood of the NFRN’s National Councillors at their spring meeting, where several Councillors spoke disparagingly about the Press Distribution Charter and PDF and passed a motion roundly condemning it, in favour of the NFRN producing its own Code of Practice/Charter that would form the basis of members’ service expectations from the industry.
Having resigned from the previous Joint Industry Group as a result of its failure to deliver on the independent newsagents agenda, there has been no attempt from the PDF to resolve the retailers’ principal issues of concern, nor any sign of it doing so.
In view of this, as well as producing its own Industry Charter, the NFRN will continue to lobby the competition authorities for a full market investigation by the Competition Commission.
Says Newstrade Operations Committee Chairman Sam Whiteside: “As a responsible organisation we have accepted invitations to meet with delegates of the PDF in order to make our position crystal clear and to avoid any misunderstandings in terms of what we feel is lacking and what changes we would wish to see and challenges that the PDF should tackle if the NFRN was to consider joining.
“But, as there has been no move towards addressing our concerns we can only conclude that we were right in describing the PDF merely as a “son of JIG”: there appears to be no desire to tackle the issues that really infuriate retailers; publishers still want an industry based on a “push” rather than “pull” supply chain, and will they concede one inch of their omnipotent power? Not a chance.
“In my view, if self-regulation is going to work in this industry then it has to be based on a partnership of equals – not masters and serfs. If publishers and wholesalers find that is too difficult to embrace then they leave us with no choice but to attempt to level the playing field via the competition authorities.”
