Newsflow oses LDN
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• Job losses running into hundreds could be ahead at NFC subsidiary Newsflow which is smarting from the closure of the five-month-old London Daily News this week.
Marketing manager David Buck says the company has already issued redundancy notices to a number of drivers and staff. He is not prepared to disclose how many people are involved, but when the company was formed 430 drivers were employed.
Buck says Newsflow will be retaining all the vehicles used on the London Daily News
contract, in readiness for an "imminent" contract within the M25. Some staff will be asked to return for this work.
One possibility is that Newsflow will be used to distribute an evening-only London paper for publisher Robert Maxwell, instead of the 24-hour London Daily News.
Criticisms made by Maxwell of Newsflow's performance are strongly refuted by Buck: "On the gold top edition we were achieving 100% distribution by 6am.
"For subsequent editions we distributed everything received from the printing plants within the original criteria. 1 would like to question the performance of the print and production side."
Newsflow was established by National Carriers Contract Serivces and Robert Maxwell last February as a joint-venture company. Maxwell paid NCCS a management fee for distributing the London Daily News. Under these terms both Maxwell and NCCS have common responsibilities to Newsflow staff now the London Daily News has folded. 0 The relationship between NCCS and Robert Maxwell was strengthened on 1 July this year when Newsflow began national distribution of Maxwell's Mirror titles. Under the Mirror contract, like the London Daily News contract, Maxwell pays NCCS a management fee for distributing his papers. Buck says the Mirror contract still represents by far the greatest volume of work for Newsflow.