David Montgomery - wolf in sheeps clothing?

Wednesday morning meant, once again, a meeting of the House of Lords Communications Select Committee taking yet more evidence for our inquiry into media ownership and the news. We are coming to the close of our evidence taking, and I wasn't too convinced that hearing from David Montgomery was going to add to the sum total of our knowledge.

I was wrong. As Chairman of the Mecom Group, he oversees extensive regional newspaper operations all over Europe, including Norway, Netherlands, Poland and the Ukraine and so had some considerable insights into the way in which newspapers operate in Europe. In some European countries the predominant method of distribution is through newsstands and in others it is through subscription - we're rather unusual in our reliance on newsagents. Some countries are highly resistant to change, for example in Germany there has been huge resistance to multi-skilling in which print journalists work in the on-line sector. In countries like Poland where a free press is a relatively recent phenomenon there has been an explosion of newspaper provision. What all newspapers have in common though is a difficulty in making profit in an environment where advertising revenue is falling, fewer people read newspapers and the costs of good news gathering is increasing.

Montgomery is renowned for his muscular approach to this problem, rather belying his soft-spoken and moderate evidence to us. When Richard Stott was sacked by Montgomery as Editor of the Daily Mirror he wrote, " what he did showed a breathtaking disregard for keeping his word and a merciless savagery unheard of even by Fleet Street's bloodsoaked and hypocritical standards". Andrew Marr, sacked by Montgomery as Editor of the Independent, added, " some of us would put it a little more strongly than that."