Wednesday 20 June 2007

The Standard Slips

According to 7days, ITP's chances of getting a licence for its daily business paper are "virtually non-existent". Surely a company like ITP wouldn't make the mistake of boasting about a newspaper launch, bragging about "Western standards of journalism", hiring the staff, producing dummies, spending bucket loads of cash etc without making sure they'd got the licence first? Would they? Oh, hold on, they've done it once before. Oops.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just think - with ITP love machine Anal Boil in charge, you could have a fictitious paper run by a fictitious journalist.

Anonymous said...

Keep an eye on AME Info and their investment-friendly London-based owners... ITP may not be alone with this vision...

Anonymous said...

that is the most bizarre 7days story ever. we all might miss the odd story - but that's about 6 months late.

Anonymous said...

Haven't ITP recently been hiring every salesperson who's ever walked out on them? Franny and Baker (sounds like a 60s pop combo) spring to mind...

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 21.25

As long as ITP maintains that the paper is going ahead, that story is NEVER going to go out of date...

Anonymous said...

Frank 'Western standards of journalism' Kane having left the paper that never was/will be to go to AMG is an irony that goes off the scale.

Care to retract your 'comments' now, you smug prick?

ITP's chances of getting a daily licence for ABStandard declined further after the Hesletine/Serafin incident in Vu's from 'slim' to 'anorexic'. It's all about who is in favour here and that's not ITP at present, and then some.

Anonymous said...

They'll get it in the end. Serafin always wins. He's relentless. He'll just keep on and on and on until it happens.

Anonymous said...

Not this time. Not going to happen. ITP went after the licence formerly used by the EEP like a shot and were told to forget about it.

Serafin has plenty of bluster and is infamous for being a **** but regardless of how long he has been in the country, he's still a foreigner.

Furthermore, if Serafin thought there was any chance that ABS was going to get a licence then he wouldn't have been sniffng around Associated trying to buy a part share in 7DAYS, would he?

p.s. Robert, you eat like a starving baboon. Learn some table manners for ****'s sake.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 15.00

'Serafin always wins'

I assume you are Serafin, if not you want shot for sycophancy and not even checking your facts.

For a recent example, would you cite the Campaign debacle as a victory?

Anonymous said...

Re: Campaign - not sure I would call Motivate a winner either, since the magazine is still not back up and running. Debacle is the right word.

Anonymous said...

Sure, wasn't suggesting it was a victory for anyone, but most certainly not for Serafin.

As well as losing the one title he had which could have bitten back at 7DAYS over the ABS piece, Serafin may have to defend legal action from Haymarket.

A shame, cos Serafin's a really nice guy, universally admired for his modesty, charm and self-affacing manner. A real 'people person'!

Anonymous said...

Ahh, Robert Serafin anyone else think he has a uncanny resemblance to Mr Burns.

Anonymous said...

Not really. Mr Burns is skeletal. Serafin is... noy

Stuart said...

As a recent returnee to ITP, who the hell is Franny? Baker is missing the other half of his duo

Anonymous said...

Nice of you to join us Westley.

Anonymous said...

I thought EEp closed down because it didn't have a licence

Anonymous said...

Nah, it had a temp licence with a view to permanency. 'They' decided not to allow permanency after the temp period was up, so was closed immediately.

ITP went after said licence and were not put off by its temporary nature. Their thinking (which is repeated in many instances through its title stable) was that once up and running, the plug would not be pulled on such a big company. ITP has far more titles than it has licences to distribute.

This was borne in mind by the 'powers that be' when telling ITP to forget it, you're NOT getting a daily licence, end of. Hence the updated story in 7days.

Xmess wanted a twice-weekly distribution licence (God alone knows what for) but was told 'no', a weekly licence is all you are getting. When establishment papers can't get what they want in terms of licensing, what price ITP getting the daily go-ahead?

Zero.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 23:32. In a blog filled to the brim with wide of the mark speculation, your comment stands out as special.

You are totally, utterly and completely wrong on every single point you have made.

Congratulations. You are now officially the most uninformed commentator on Dubai's silly media scene.

Anonymous said...

Anon above.

I know which of yours and the comment preceding yours gets my vote.

ABS was due to launch three years ago. This gives some indication that there's, erm, difficulty in getting a licence.

It's also a fact, not conjcture, that ITP was sniffing around the vacnt EEP licence before bein told to 'go away'.

If the guy you're railing against in 'uniformed', you shoudl take a bow for being deluded. And a bit patronising as well, as you nix what has been said but offer nothing in the way of setting the record straight.

Wonder why?!

Anonymous said...

Anon 13.49

You are totally, utterly and completely unaware of the concept of tautology.

Try and keep up, the standard here is not so high!

Anonymous said...

You want to play around with arguments about style and tautology? Here?

Aren't you in the wrong place?

Wanker.

What other blog could you go to to find some arse banging on about tautology in support of some sad git who can't even spell 'should'?

You all have everything you so richly deserve. And yes, the post about EEP and so on was totally wrong.

And, while we're at it, utterly and completely.

Anonymous said...

*yawn*

You're all so full of it, the lot of you.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering - what's the real story behind the Campaign debacle?

Anyone?

Anonymous said...

Hey Andy did you hear about this one - How come on Andrew Neils Wikipedia Page it has no mention of his 30 year long partnership with Robert Serafin or his involvement with ITP?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Neil

Is he not proud of the great work he has done in the Middle East?