"The arms that you wield now are not such as your forefathers wielded; but they are infinitely more effective, and infinitely more irresistable" ~ Cymru Fydd leaflet, 1890

Friday 27 July 2012

The Western Fail / Fails Online boycott.


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According to the ABC circulation figures, the Western Fail is in terminal decline. I've taken the graph below from their report (.pdf!). And as you can see it's only going one way.


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So why then, with the Western Fail readership in such a terminal decline do so many Welsh nationalists still buy it? Less than 1% of the people in Wales buy it, 0.84% to be exact using the ABC figures and the latest Census figures. In fact to make that number even easier to digest it works out as 1 in 118 people is a Western Fail buyer. The number amongst nats must be far higher because all I see on blogs, facebook and twitter is posts and links to their nasty site and references to their rag.

So please, let's stop buying the paper, let's stop visiting the website and let's watch it die. By keeping on giving them money we are only extending the inevitable.

Page rank stats for FailsOnline can be found here. It has a lower readership than it's offline rag, hopefully this number will fall steadily too.

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(Had to remove comments on this page due to the amount of spam coming from Poland. It was either that or switch on moderation or captcha).

6 comments:

  1. Like all things in Welsh politics it is easy to oppose, boycott and bemoan, without thinking of anything positive to replace that which we oppose.
    I don't like the Western Mail or the Daily Post, but if we oppose them what have we got instead? The Sun and the Mirror, the Daily mail and the Daily Express that don't even to pretend that Wales exists!

    Rather than boycotting the Western Mail and the Daily Post, shouldn't we let them know that the 1% of the people of Wales who read their rags are nationalists (big or small N) and if they reflected that in their coverage they could increase their readership?

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    1. From what I have read from others this paper has always had an anti-Wales, anti-Welsh agenda. They didn't listen to the Welsh back when it was at it's peak so why listen to them now it's on it's knees?

      "Old media" is on the back foot, we should be embracing the "new media" and the instant, uncontrollable news and benefits it brings.

      Rather than worrying about what will replace the rag, the people of Wales should be helping to replace it.

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  2. For a while the Mule did realise who bought it, but now it seems to have adopted a death-wish by alienating its readers. Financially, it can afford to do this because it's the only 'national' newspaper and therefore has the guaranteed income of Welsh Government, Wales Office and other notices and adverts. And it will always have it's hard core readership, because these have nowhere else to go.

    But if the WM does not change, then either people must get organised and bring out a rival or go for an online 'paper. It will be a test for how strongly enough people feel about the Welsh media.

    One thing can be predicted with certainty. If enough people could organise themselves to produce a rival, online or print, the Welsh Government would suddenly start being concerned about the state of the Welsh media.

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    1. Precisely, somehow we need to come together and produce something akin to what they have in Scotland with NNS. That is basically a blog with a great layout and numerous authors.

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  3. Things are getting worse at Trinity Towers. The anti-Welsh onslaught on the comments following articles was getting so nasty - co-coordinated, I suspect by glasnost.org - a white flighter in fflint - that they blocked a lot of people - but they also blocked a number of people from both sides of the debate who were reasoned and informative, and who took care to keep to the rules. (and yes - I was one of them). They have had to close two comment threads - one on the Owain Glyndwr snooker hall, the other on Plaid's thinking about a hung parliament in 2015, because of the anti-welsh vitriol - much of which comes from outside Wales.

    I have been a contributor to the Walesonline site for a number of years, but I just can't be bothered to create a new persona, so they have lost another reader.

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    1. I'd also ignore the likes of glasnost. Most of their traffic probably comes from people who just want to slag them off, so it's better to just avoid them and starve them of any sense of achievement.

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