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New newspaper New Day finds a new way to fail

Trinity Mirror’s new newspaper New Day has closed after two months. Well there’s a turn up.

The cheaply produced paper saw its circulation plummet from two million free copies on the launch day to 40,000 when its price rose to the planned 50p. Trinity was aiming for 200,000.
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The only surprise about this is that Trinity has canned it so quickly. But New Day was never going to work – it didn’t even have a website.

Editor Alison Phillips says: “The response over the 50 issues we have published has been extraordinary. I have never worked on a title with such engagement from readers. There clearly were many people who truly loved the idea of a different kind of newspaper which spoke to them. But the reality was we didn’t have enough of them on a daily basis.

“To have not given this a go was to mean we were content to stand on the pavement and watch the decline of British national newspapers hurtle past us. But we weren’t. And we still aren’t.”

What planet are these people on? Included in that is Trinity CEO Simon Fox.

Newspapers are a difficult market these days, as we know only too well. But believing that you can persuade people to pay 50p for recycled and out of date tosh produced on the cheap (New Day had a staff of just 25) is certifiable. You may be able to get away with it online if it’s free.

Newspaper advertising is fleeing online at a frightening rate; even good newspapers like the Daily Mail (whatever you think of its hectoring tone) are struggling. And the Mail has a big staff, astute editors and deep pockets.

Does this show that newspapers have well and truly had their day? You can’t write off a whole sector because of one ham-fisted initiative. But it’s hardly good news is it?

One Comment

  1. The Daily Mail is hardly a fine example of a paper that doesn’t recycle tosh.

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