you would say it doesn t feel as if it s told your story as much as it should have done, and it s your chance to change that. exactly that. lorna, archant was bought by an equity firm last summer. and now you re looking to turn the business around. but you faced hard times before that. we did. i think it s been tough for all regional newspaper businesses. the language that we hear around regional press being in crisis is somewhere off the mark. i think that archant had been on a good trajectory for the last two or three years, in terms of the level of innovation that we ve employed we ve been struggling with a very heavy pension deficit. but beyond that pension deficit i think the level of innovation that this business has been showing, two years ago we started working very closely with google. on one hand there s always a pressure of pension deficit but suddenly we started working with google, and we had some money in the bank to invest and be given
i want to talk to a little bit later on about what s driving that. if you look back to your own consumption of the media in the past you would say it doesn t feel as if it s told your story as much as it should have done, and it s your chance to change that. exactly that. lorna, archant was bought by an equity firm last summer. and now you re looking to turn the business around. but you faced hard times before that. we did. i think it s been tough for all regional newspaper businesses. the language that we hear around regional press being in crisis is somewhere off the mark. i think that archant had been on a good trajectory for the last two or three years, in terms of the level of innovation that we ve employed we ve been struggling with a very heavy pension deficit. but beyond that pension deficit
i think the level of innovation that this business has been showing. we started working very closely with google. on one hand there s always a pressure of pension deficit but suddenly we started working with google, and we had some money in the bank to invest and be given the space to innovate. as a result of the project, we built the most advanced voice infrastructure in terms of uk media. and we re excited to be launching that over the next 18 months. so to say hard times. actually throughout covid, everybody had their story to tell, and it has been horrendous for everyone in the businesses we look after, but actually, no, outside of the industry people look in and think wow, we work with a huge amount of talent every day. challenging but extremely exciting. but somejobs did go? absolutely.
crisis is somewhere at the mark. i think crisis is somewhere at the mark. i think that crisis is somewhere at the mark. i think that archant had been on a good think that archant had been on a good trajectory for the last two or three good trajectory for the last two or three years in terms of the level of innovation three years in terms of the level of innovation that we ve employed for that we ve innovation that we ve employed for that we ve been hit and we ve been struggling that we ve been hit and we ve been struggling with a very heavy pension deficit struggling with a very heavy pension deficit. but beyond that pension deficit deficit. but beyond that pension deficit i deficit. but beyond that pension deficit i think the level of innovation that this business has been innovation that this business has been showing. the .net two years ago we started been showing. the .net two years ago we started working very closely with pure gold we started working very c
of channel 4 news. is it sometimes a thorn in their side? yes, it is. but i do think they recognise it and i think ourjob is to make sure the journalism speaks for itself. that we continue to break exclusives and change the world, and i think we even look to see if we can enhance the remit in a future arrangement. i think there are models out there that point to how you can protect news. i was at comcast when comcast acquired sky, and comcast have signed up to a ten year guarantee of sky news s budget, with rpi, and an independent editorial board which protects sky s news editorial independence. and i think there are models there, if we re serious about it, so we re going to be obviously putting some of that into our submission for dcms consultation. so, how are you able, for instance, to deal with what the telegraph reported last month to be itn s £16a.6 million pension deficit? how do you deal with that? well, it s no secret that itn has a pension deficit, and in fact, the telegraph