Publishing giant WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd plans to change the way it pays its distributors, offering to shift from commission to fee-based remuneration in a deal its says makes agents better off.
Publishing giant WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd plans to change the way it pays its distributors, offering to shift from commission to fee-based remuneration in a deal its says makes agents better off.
The Herdsman-based publisher of The West Australian has had a long-running and, at times, public battle with newsagents over remuneration for home delivery of the newspaper, with the issue spilling over into the company's annual meeting and being used as a cause célèbre by Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes in his battle for a WAN board seat.
Busselton delivery agent Sharon Armour ran as a candidate for the WAN board as a direct result of her campaign to improve the lot of distributors.
WAN managing director Ken Steinke said the publisher had sought to decouple the payments from the cover price. Currently, commission paid is a percentage of the retail cost of the newspaper, which Mr Steinke said had remained unchanged for two years. Instead, WAN is offering agents a fee per delivery.
Mr Steinke said an annual review would also be part of the new agreement being offered to agents.
"At the moment the distributor only gets a pay rise when the cover price goes up," he said.
Mr Steinke said distributors would be financially better off under the new deal, a point the Australian Newsagents Federation said appeared to be the case.
The WAN chief said that, while the new fee structure would initially be the same across all types of sales, the change would allow the company to tailor its payments in future to encourage particular activity.
"What we can do by making it fee for delivery (we can) make it more attractive to do what we think agents should be doing," Mr Steinke said.
Theoretically, such incentives could be extended to particular regions to improve sales of a particular type, for example home delivery.
"At the end of the day you need a viable system for distributors but it also has to work for this company, WAN, and the customers of WAN," Mr Steinke said.
"What it does is get rid of an artificial nexus between the cover price and the distributor."
Australian Newsagents Federation WA director Neville Roediger confirmed initial analysis showed the offer was an improvement on previous terms in a financial sense.
However, Mr Roediger said the company had developed the offer without any direct negotiation with his organisation, and agents were being given only a limited period to consider it.
"There is a sense they are pressurising the industry," he said.
Mr Roediger said the offer's inclusion of an annual review required some clarification.
"We don't know how it will be reviewed or what will be included," he said.
"We would be encouraging them to fill those gaps before agents sign anything."
