Times may be tough for the Scottish newspaper and broadcasting industries but there are other industry sectors also finding the going hard.
None more so, arguably, than the property market – typified by the experiences of former Edinburgh broadcasting journalist, Iain Mercer.
Mercer featured in a major interview in The Scotsman this week on how he is faring running the property business established by his late father, Wallace Mercer – the inimitable former owner of football club, Heart of Midlothian.
Mercer, now 32, began his career as a broadcast journalist, with freelance stints for Radio 5 Live, TalkSport and Scot FM to pay his way through Edinburgh Napier University – finally landing a full-time post at Radio Forth covering news and sport.
He took over the driving seat in the family after his father’s death, five years ago, and The Scotsman's Erikka Askeland writes: “The best thing Mercer has to report since the property market began its vertiginous drop in 2007 is his property’ firm’s ongoing existence – ‘the story is we are still here’.”
Mercer is further quoted, saying: “The last three years have been certainly the most challenging of my short business career and continue to be so. And it is hard to see how things will materially change in the immediate future.”
