Back in June we raised the subject of how much the Isle of Wight council spends on advertising.
To recap, we’d asked the IW Council to break down how much they had spent on advertising over the last ten years.
They refused to give us the information through normal channels, forcing us to use the Freedom of Information Act.
The information was late in arriving, taking over half as long again as the law dictates.
Pouring over the list of columns is where it started to get interesting … and slightly shocking.
We’d always known that the Council had a commercial relationship with the County Press, but we’d never imagined that it was the size it is.
Missing Year 2005-6
Before we get on to that, we need to explain that the IW Council was unable to provide us with any details whatsoever of the money that they spent on advertising, job adverts, or the ‘IW Council Image Campaign’ in the year 2005-6.
So there’s a big, black hole for this period. When we asked why, we were told that they “regret that this information for 2005/06 is not recorded in a comparable format to the other years.”
The IWC tell us that the last year they’ve sent us (2009-10), is just the spending “to date,” so it would be reasonable to assume there might be more to add to it.
£4,000+ a week to the County Press
In the last year of complete figures that we have (2008-09), the Isle of Wight council paid the County Press an average of over £4,000 every single week of the year. An amount totalling £215,808.34 for one year.
From what we can make out, this is separate from the money that they spent on Job Adverts. That totals another £170,301.62 over a number of publications in the latest period (2009-10, to date figures).
300% Spend Increase
Over the period 2000-01 to 2008-09, the amount of money paid to the County Press has increased over 300%, from £71,394.08 to £215,808.34 a year.
CP got Two Thirds of all council ad spend
In 2007-8 the County Press received over two thirds (66.81%) of the whole of the council’s media spend off and on the Island (CP – £194,591.94, Total spend – £291,260.28).
Over the last ten years (period that we have figures for), it has remained at over half of all council ad media spend on and off the Island every year.
A near 50% increase in one year
We’re not sure what happened in 2007-08, but the amount that the IW council gave the County Press jumped up by close to 50% in a single year.
The precise numbers are £133,790.53 (2006-07) growing to £194,591.94 (2007-08). A multiple of 1.45.
Over £1.2 million spent
Over the last ten years the IW Council has spent at least £1.2 million pounds advertising with the County Press – this excluded the undeclared 2005-06 figure, which could be reasonably guessed at adding at least another £100,000, bringing the total to over £1.3m.
Savings
The public announcement this week by Council leader David Pugh that the council will no longer buy a copy of the County Press at 70p per week pail somewhat into insignificance.
The detail
Here’s the figures for you
£198,111.56 – 2009-10 (Incomplete. Figures to date)
£215,808.34 – 2008-09
£194,591.94 – 2007-08
£133,790.53 – 2006-07
Not supplied – 2005-06
£105,969.98 – 2004-05
£112,949.91 – 2003-04
£93,346.37 – 2002-03
£86,999.31 – 2001-02
£71,394.08 – 2000-01
More coming
There’s more details from the ‘spreadsheet of all knowledge’ on the way – just as soon as we get the next chunk compiled.
