When Sebastian Coe walks past the glass-walled office where Media Week is interviewing Nick Hewat, Telegraph Media Group's new sales director, Hewat breaks off the conversation to turn and stare.
"Put that in," insists the former radio veteran, who, just three weeks into his new job in national press, is still clearly starstruck by sighting his sporting hero deep in discussion with Sunday Telegraph editor Ian MacGregor.
Hewat spent 13 years working at GCap and Absolute Radio before starting at the newspaper group on 8 June, one month to the day after the Telegraph dropped the bombshell of the MPs' expenses scandal.
Morale and circulations are high, with internal estimates claiming the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph have sold more than 1.5 million extra copies since the revelations of moats, manure and mortgages broke on 8 May.
The newspaper ABCs for May showed The Sunday Telegraph recorded a circulation of 619,182, up 4.8% on April, while The Daily Telegraph posted a circulation of 836,410, up 2.29% over the same period. Closer to home, Hewat's local supermarket sold out of the Saturday 20 June expenses supplement - proof, as he puts it, that "the appetite for the print product is undimmed and there's life in the old model yet".
"I couldn't have joined TMG at a better time," Hewat says. "The expenses scandal is arguably the biggest scoop of the decade. Newspapers are traditionally the Fourth Estate and this is a fantastic example of newspapers holding our legislature to account. The story has reminded everyone of the importance of papers."
Last year, Hewat was heavily involved in SMG's sale of Virgin Radio to Times of India Group and Virgin's rebranding to Absolute Radio, and when the renamed station had started to bed in, he felt his time in radio had come to a "natural conclusion".
He was subsequently headhunted for TMG's sales director position and is pleased to have joined executive director Dave King, a former competitor when King worked at Emap Radio, and trading director Jim Freeman, a former customer from Freeman's days as head of radio at ZenithOptimedia. He also works alongside Matthew Watkins, director of advertising strategy, and Alison Reay, digital and multimedia director.
Powerful product
Hewat now oversees a sales team of 40, responsible for TMG's newspapers and magazines, as well as its Manchester and international sales operations. He says: "I felt as though I was joining a really strong team and a powerful product within an industry that is undergoing significant change, and I wanted to be a part of it."
Nevertheless, the move to the relentless world of national press, where there is "no hiding place" for unbooked adspace, requires a different set of skills. One new discipline is the Telegraph's daily "leads meeting" at 8.30am, when the group heads scour the ads in that morning's issues of their quality and mid-market rivals.
Hewat says: "Press is very visible: we can instantly see how we are performing each morning. As a result, the sales team is intensely competitive and on top of its business."
Hewat's first priorities are to "listen and learn" and to meet key customers - agency heads of press such as GroupM's Steve Goodman and MediaCom's Claudine Collins - to discover how they perceive TMG's brands. Detractors of the Telegraph might argue that it is a staid, traditional paper catering for a 55+ market, but Hewat is keen to emphasise the paper's move towards a younger, more multimedia audience.
He says: "Some preconceptions are true - the paper is heavily AB with an affluent audience - but TMG has realised quickly that the distribution of news has changed and we must change with it. The challenge is to make your primary product available when and where people want it, with no inhibitions."
This is not just talk. Telegraph's Twitter feed is followed by 20,000 people, it has more than 25 million readers online and Telegraph TV is pioneering online video advertising formats. The Telegraph was the first UK newspaper to launch an application for the iPhone, which it followed with apps for the BlackBerry and Google's Android handset, and this month it introduced a F1 iPhone app with video content and Twitter feeds, which costs £1.79 through iTunes.
Exploiting loyalty
The Telegraph is also exploiting the loyalty of its readers - 85% of readers claim they do not read another quality newspaper - to sell them cruises, wine and holidays, and to run a mobile exchange programme.
The development of new distribution methods is overseen by Paul Cheesbrough, chief information officer, who is responding to enquiries about e-readers and charging for content online. Hewat is following developments with interest - such as US title the Newport Daily News charging double for its e-edition - but says debates on these issues are being held "in private" until a consensus is reached.
He says: "We will see all manner of experimentation in the coming weeks and months. We are all in a period of trying to understand how consumers' behaviour is changing and how to stay ahead of the curve. Many different methods will be tried, because no one knows the answer yet."
Hewat turned 40 in February, but his move from radio to national press will prove the biggest milestone in his life this year. He still pre-sets his car radio to Absolute and admits he is "on a steep learning curve that is testing the grey matter". He says: "The journey into the unknown is absolutely fascinating."
CV
2009 Sales director, Telegraph Media Group
2005 Sales director, Absolute Radio
2000 Head of agency sales, Capital Radio
1997 Group head, Capital Radio
1996 Sales executive, Media Sales and Marketing (MSM)
1995 Travelling
1991 Sales planner, MSM
Lives
Finchley
Car
Vauxhall Zafira
Family
Partner Karen with two sons: Joe and Ben
Desert island media
Absolute Radio, Radio 4, The Week and Private Eye
Hewat on...
The difference between press and radioThe radio ad log closes every day. If you are not full, you just play another record. But in newspapers, if you don't sell that quarter page, there is an issue of the profitability of the paper that day, because each page costs money.
Telegraph readers At the height of the MPs' expenses scandal, the Telegraph was receiving 1,200 letters a day. That interaction between consumer and product is extraordinary.
Trading in a difficult ad marketThe whole ad market is still in flux and, in these unprecedented times, the biggest lesson we have learnt is that newspapers must be able to prove their effectiveness. We have to prove our value to customers in terms of engagement and sales.
Competition The Telegraph is intensely competitive with other papers, but we must also be interested in category growth for the sector as a whole. When you need to collaborate with your rivals, you should collaborate. I am a great believer in that and think it is something we need to work towards.
Be the first to comment