Fine-Tuning at the IHT p. 14

By: M.L. Stein

Financial Times of London executive plans minor changes as
he takes top post at U.S.-owned International Herald Tribune
RICHARD ARTHUR FRANCIS McClean, the new CEO and publisher of the International Herald Tribune, believes he has taken over a healthy newspaper that, perhaps, needs only a little fine-tuning to make it even healthier.
The 56-year-old Englishman, whose previous job was deputy chief executive and CEO of the Financial Times of London, is not even terribly worried about the international competition from USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek or from his former newspaper.
Interviewed recently in his Paris office, McClean conceded, "There is a lot of choice out there but I don't think any of them would argue that the Tribune has the best availability in its access to the New York Times and Washington Post," which own the Herald Tribune.
Begun in 1887 as the European edition of the New York Herald, the IHT today has a worldwide circulation of 190,000, of which 53,000-plus is by subscription. Some 13,000 of the subscribers are in the United States.
The urbane McClean, who succeeds Lee Huebner as the Tribune's top executive, came up entirely on the business and marketing side. He joined the Financial Times advertising department in 1955, became its advertising director and climbed from there.
He was cautious when asked if he would involve himself in the editorial side of the Tribune.
"The relationship between the publisher and editor means different things in the U.K. and America," he observed. "At the Financial Times, you were very straightforward in how you put forth ideas for the paper. The American publisher's position is very different and it's one which I've got to learn. I'm still feeling my way around here."
Tribune editor John Vinocur, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was lauded by McClean as an "outstanding editor, who has put together an outstandingly edited paper. When you finish reading the Tribune, you have a real feeling for what is going on in the world."
McClean added, however, that he has a number of ideas for the Tribune, which include "taking a very active interest in how the paper is put together and the lines that it takes."
One of the lines, he indicated, will be an expansion of the IHT's financial news section. Shortly after he took over, the Tribune ran a big takeout on Japan's place in the world economic picture. U.S. economic news also will be increased, McClean predicted.
"If I'm an international businessman, I would want to know how the world's largest economy is working," he said. "What happens in the States matters tremendously to Tribune readers. It creates a ripple effect felt all over the world."
Overall, McClean said, he does not believe the Tribune requires any "radical" changes but "like everybody else, we have to look at our cost base. Distribution costs and newsprint are very high" in the face of declining advertising.
Besides Paris, the Tribune has principal offices in New York; London; Tokyo; Frankfurt, Germany; Hong Kong; Singapore, and at four other locations. There are IHT facsimile presses in Paris; London; Marseille, France; Zurich, Switzerland; The Hague,The Netherlands; Hong Kong; Singapore; New York; Rome; Tokyo, and Frankfurt.
Distribution covers 164 countries. The Tribune's promotion describes the paper as appealing to the "global elite in the worlds of business, finance and government."
In several countries, the Tribune, which has a relatively small advertising base, posts a newsstand price of nearly $2, a sum McClean defends as suitable for a "quality newspaper."
Noting that USA Today and other international newspapers charge roughly the same amount, he commented, "I assume this is the pricing policy of all of us ? that we should be slightly more expensive than the local product, given our high distribution expense. However, there is a level above which the public won't pay."
McClean said newspapers also must be aware that they are vying for the buyer's limited reading time.
McClean is upbeat about the future of the Tribune and newspapers "Newspapers will be around for a long time," he said. "The Tribune is a healthy engine. We just have to make sure that it's firing on all 12 cylinders."