Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 63)
MONDAY 1 MARCH 2004
MR ROBERT
CAMPBELL, MR
RICHARD CHARKIN
AND DR
JOHN JARVIS
Q60 Chairman: We are seeing Reed
Elsevier next. How do your companies compare with them? Are they
the giants in the land?
Mr Campbell: They are the largest
in terms of market share. We would claim that we are growing faster.
It is a competitive market.
Q61 Chairman: What about your policies?
Do they diverge or converge with each other? Why are they so good
and you are so useless at getting the market?
Mr Campbell: Chairman, that is
an unfair remark.
Q62 Chairman: Nothing is unfair in
this place, as you well know.
Mr Campbell: I think we are growing
market share faster than they are. It is a lively market and if
there is scope to take market share from Elsevier we will.
Dr Jarvis: At the end of the day
authors decide where they submit their material. If Elsevier win
some, we win some.
Mr Campbell: We would say that
we won against them last year. Five journals were moved from Elsevier
to Blackwell. The societies decided to move.
Chairman: They are big-hearted guys.
Q63 Paul Farrelly: You seem to be
thoroughly relaxed about the effects of increasing concentration.
From time to time there is speculation about Walters Klawer joining
Reed Elsevier. Would you be very relaxed about that or would you
go kicking and screaming to the regulatory authorities and, if
so, why?
Dr Jarvis: If you compare our
industry to the aircraft industry, it is not consolidated. Between
Elsevier, Blackwell, Macmillan, Wiley and SpringerI think
we come up to about 35% of the total market. There is an enormous
piece which is not in this room, and so I do not quite know why
it is such a consolidated industry when you see companies like
Boeing and Airbus and those kinds of industries. That does seem
a fairly tight market. I am not quite sure where this market dominance
idea comes from. We have a very long tail to our industry.
Mr Charkin: I do not think when
the last big merger between Harcourt and Reed Elsevier happened
that we felt it was not in the interests of competition because
it is a hugely fragmented business and we all compete in different
ways. Some compete by being very author-friendly, some are more
aggressive in the marketing, some add value in the technology,
and we make up our own policies as we go along and we hope to
do as good a job as possible.
Dr Jarvis: We compete a lot around
individual journals. We want the best cardiology journal, the
best physics journal. Sometimes we have and other times one of
our competitors does. It does not feel like a consolidated industry
when you are out there, I can assure you.
Chairman: On that note, that you do not
bug each other's board meetings, can I say thank you very much
for kicking us off. You are very welcome to stay for the next
session.
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