Sunday Tribune - Second Near Collapse

Second Near Collapse

The paper became one of Ireland's most successful newspapers in the 1980s, eating into the market of The Sunday Press, which like other Press titles was hæmorrhaging readers through underfunding, an aging market and poor management decisions. Replicating McLoughlin's mistake of a decade earlier, against advice Browne launched a new sister paper, the Dublin Tribune, which collapsed pulling the Sunday Tribune down with it.

The Dublin Tribune, though a commercial failure, was a breeding ground for a number of talented young journalists under the direction of editors Michael Hand and Rory Godson, and news editor Colin Kerr. These included Patricia Deevy, Diarmuid Doyle, Ursula Halligan, Nicola Byrne, Ronan Price, Richard Balls, Paul Howard, Colm Murphy, Brendan Fanning, Conn O Midheach and Ed O'Loughlin who is on the shortlist for the Booker Prize for his novel Not Untrue And Not Unkind.

The Sunday Tribune was saved from bankruptcy by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media (then called Independent Newspapers plc), which acquired a 29.9 per cent stake in the company. Even before the investment the relationship between Browne and the board of the company had been contentious. In the aftermath of the Dublin Tribune debacle Browne was sacked as editor.

Browne was succeeded as editor by Peter Murtagh, a Dublin-born journalist formerly with The Irish Times who moved to London in 1985 and was news editor at The Guardian. Appointed Sunday Tribune editor in 1994, Murtagh had limited success, seeing early circulation growth dissipate and the paper starved of resources. He resigned after just over two years, telling journalists he could not secure sufficient investment from the Board. Later, he rejoined The Irish Times where is now a managing editor.

After taking its 29.9 per cent stake, Independent Newspapers made an offer to increase its share to a majority level, however the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Desmond O'Malley, blocked the takeover attempt in 1992. Despite this, it is believed by many Irish business journalists that Independent Newspapers effectively control the Sunday Tribune via a series of loans.

Matt Cooper, a business journalist with O'Reilly's Irish Independent newspaper, succeeded Murtagh as editor from 1996 to 2003. When Cooper departed the Sunday Tribune in early 2003 and moved into broadcast journalism with Today FM radio station, he was succeeded by Paddy Murray, who was before and is now again a columnist with the Sunday World newspaper.

Murray's tenure was marked by a rise in circulation to well above 80,000, aided four or five times a year by classical music CD promotions. Readership under Murray reached 281,000 - its highest to date - according to the Joint National Readership Survey of 2005. That represented an 8.4 per cent share. During his time as editor, Murray launched a campaign in the paper to save the Gabhra Valley from destruction by the M3 motorway. The campaign was later dropped by the Sunday Tribune, but Murray has kept it up in the Sunday World.

The paper was alone among Irish newspapers at the time, to come out strongly against the invasion of Iraq, Murray's editorial predicting, accurately, that the invasion was akin to opening Pandora's Box. Though the future of the newspaper has long thought to be uncertain it has continued to survive in the increasingly competitive Irish newspaper market. Its survival was helped by the collapse of the Irish Press group, which removed its highly popular Sunday Press from the market. Though many of its readers would not necessarily have been politically close to the Sunday Tribune, they were closer to it than the main alternative, the Sunday Independent.