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A revolution that changed nothing

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Wapping dispute and of the birth of The Independent. It also marks the death of the latter in printed form and, as it was the last surviving national newspaper born in the wake of Wapping, this is an opportune moment to cast a critical eye on the claims made at the time that new and diverse papers would flourish thanks to Murdoch’s self-styled “dash for freedom”. Thus, to take but two of many possible examples, Ian Aitken in The Guardian looked forward to “entirely new newspapers representing all points of view”, while at The Observer Robert Taylor wrote of how the new technology would undermine “the tyranny of the mass circulation press, with its mindless formula journalism appealing to the lowest common denominator”. However, this is to ignore the obvious fact (obvious, at least, to everyone except “free market” fundamentalists) that established players in the marketplace do not generally welcome with open arms new entrants, that is, competitors, and do their best to neutralise them as quickly as possible. In the newspaper market, new arrivals will typically be greeted by their rivals spending heavily on promotions (£25.3million on television advertising alone in the first three months of 1987) and cutting their advertising rates, thus forcing the newcomers to do the same. Meanwhile in the weekend market, new glossy magazines and yet more supplements will be added to the already bulging existing offer in a bid to discourage established readers from trying a new title. And then, rather more brutally, there are spoilers. Thus when Robert