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Updated, 11:46
THE COMMUNICATIONS minister Pat Rabbitte has described as “nonsense” moves by the co-owner of the Irish Daily Star to shut down the paper after it published topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge on Saturday.
Rabbitte said the response of Richard Desmond, whose Northern & Shell group owns 50 per cent of the paper, to “close down the joint venture” was a “completely disproportionate response”.
It was an excessive reaction to “suggest that the paper ought to be closed down because of a lapse in taste”, Rabbitte said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s John Murray Show, Rabbitte commented that he could not understand how Desmond “could reconcile the rather timid move by The Star with what he’s prepared to do in some of his publications in terms of the way women are presented”.
Northern & Shell has previously been the UK publisher of the adult magazines Penthouse and Asian Babes among others. Rabbitte said Desmond’s response to the photos of the former Kate Middleton being published in an Irish paper, while he “has no difficulty publishing photographs of women topless”, was “hypocrisy”.
The minister said that while he “wouldn’t have made the decision the Star made – I wouldn’t make a lot of the decisions the Star makes – I would still defend its right to continue to publish its newspaper”.
“The Star has a following in Ireland, it has a readership in Ireland… there are, I understand, 70 to 80 people employed there. So let’s keep things in perspective,” he said.
Desmond has said he would take immediate steps to “close down the joint venture” with the Irish-based Independent News & Media, which owns the other 50 per cent of the Star’s publisher Independent Star Ltd.
Independent News & Media has described any attempt to shut down the paper as a “disproportionate” response to the controversy, while both the British and Irish branches of the National Union of Journalists have criticised Desmond’s approach as “over the top”,
Irish Daily Star editor Michael O’Kane said he believed the images to be tasteful, and pointed out that the photos of Middleton – who, he said, would never be Queen of Ireland – had not appeared in the edition of the paper circulated in Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the paper’s financial columnist Eddie Hobbs has said he disagreed with the paper’s decision to publish the photographs – but believes the paper will not be shut down.
Hobbs, who writes a weekly column for the paper, said the paper had “stood its ground” over the furore in a manner which was “characteristic” of its firm editorial stance on some issues.
“The Daily Star is an extremely profitable publication from what we can see,” Hobbs told Newstalk’s Breakfast programme.
Hobbs said he believed Richard Desmond “shot his mouth off” by suggesting he would shut down the Irish paper over the weekend.
Hobbs said Desmond was merely “taking advantage of the situation in order, perhaps, to fulfil a commercial agenda which he wanted to do anyway”.
“I don’t think it was correct to publish those photographs, incidentally, personally… [but the Star] certainly didn’t follow the lead of the UK tabloids with regard to the royal couple,” he said.
The Corkonian said while the Star’s controversy was “one to watch”, he felt it would “all blow over”. ”The biggest problem the Royal family have at the moment is Prince Harry out in Afghanistan,” he said.
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“This is why Snapchat fully deserves a €16 billion valuation” And yet the article doesn’t explain why Snapchat deserves a €16 billion valuation. Sure, I understand its potential revenue raising abilities. I understand its appeal to advertisers. I understand that it hosts a lot of personal information which would be invaluable to potential investors and advertisers. But why, exactly, is it €16 billion? Why not €15 billion? Or €1000 trillion? How did they arrive at a figure of €16 billion?
I think the headline means, “Snapchat has recently been valued at $16bn. Here’s why it’s so popular/unique”.
Yeah, but we know why it’s so popular and unique. We see articles about it every second day. If, at this stage, you don’t know about Snapchat’s popularity and uniqueness then the likelihood is you just don’t care, in which case you wouldn’t be reading this anyway. We have still to see how exactly the 16 billion figure was calculated, which I what the headline alludes to.
What I was saying above is that Snapchat has three major features that could be massive money spinners for them, and how it’s effectively become a multimedia platform as well, they’re the most quantifiable ones unless you’re privy to their future plans then fire away.
As for how a company is valued, that takes into a number of factors into consideration which would include money raised (so far, it’s raised $648m in 6 different funding rounds), current popularity, the potential for growth in both revenue and users, (which links to the last one but anyway), the value of the industry (instant messaging would be the obvious one, but it’s now become a media entity and has video on its side so that’s two, three if you include Snapchat Stories and its potential for widespread event), assets (both digital and physical), is it public or private, and so on.
Determining the exact reasons why it settled on $19/€16 billion to the point of a formula isn’t possible since you don’t know what factors they’re prioritising ahead of others. Also, when you’re dealing with a private company as unlike Facebook, Apple, Twitter or any other public company, they’ve no obligation to share details about their plans or forecasts to anyone.
In Snapchat’s case, it’s potential in three areas as I mentioned above: events, multimedia (it trying to become a Netflix-style entity for articles, music and TV), and payments/ecommerce as they’re the ones that have a massive influence on this valuation. Also the core psychological element of Snapchat of limitation (which is oddly overlooked and was the main reason I wrote this in the first place) is such a massive factor and that seeps into all of its features. If Snapchat was just about self-destructing photos/videos on its own, then it would have been overshadowed by Facebook Poke back in 2012 or accepted Facebook’s $3 offer back in 2013.
The discussions I’ve seen on the subject (on Twitter and other sites) only mention Discover as if that was the sole reasons behind such a high valuation. The main point above is that it’s rarely one factor that leads to that, (especially when it’s well-known), and it’s weird how other features are forgotten about just because they’re not as new or shiny as the latest thing (or the tired ‘sexting’ angle that’s peddled out regularly).
Give it 3 yrs and youll see all such companies worth a fraction of todays value, times they are a changin
I get all that. The fact still remains that the headline suggests that the accompanying article will explain exactly how the figure of 16 billion was reached. I was curious to know how they got that figure. And yet, I’m still none the wiser. Should it have a large valuation? Obviously the answer is yes, and you have explained that both in the article and your comment. But we’re still no closer to understanding the 16 billion valuation. Sorry, but I’m a stickler for this kind of thing. If you know how, then say it and let the headline reflect it. If you don’t, then don’t mislead the reader into thinking you do, only to leave the reader empty handed.
If everyone on snap chat had a super sweet party = 16 x the amount of willie photos ever sent = 16billion
On Sesame Street their number of the day is 16 x 1billion. Tomorrow it will be $43 Billion
I’d say the long term bet is when an analyst bets a pension fund on this.
I’d be nervous.
It could only ever be a trade sale to Google or the like …. Its a very limited product. If a pension fund manager bought snapchat, they should be sacked.
Nothing on this Earth deserves to be valued at €16 billion
So what’s your idea of a max cap value so Andy?
You haven’t seen my willy.
If I owned it I would sell now
Fapchat
It deserves about a 16 CENT valuation. It’s ridiculous, and hopefully a fad that will die quickly. If the world is lucky, some evil company will pay 16B, then go out of business when people realise how stupid Snapchat is.
Never seen such anger directed at a mobile phone application before! Got dumped via Snapchat did you? :-)
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