Do We Need a New Day?

Just as The Independent announced it's disappearing from the news stands on 26th March, another appears with "The New Day" and a bold statement.

Welcome to The New Day, the first brand new newspaper for 30 years.

If you are going to make a statement at least get it right!

"i" was launched by The Independent in 2010 only 6 years ago.

Anyway, when I saw Trinity Mirror, responsible for the below brands made a decision launch a new print title I was intrigued.

• A large media portfolio including The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror

• A digital marketing arm including Email Service Provider Communicator (not to be confused with the crap CommuniGator) and Digital Agency RippleEffect
• A selection of Digital Classified websites including Fish4Jobs (they were big years ago) and SecsintheCity (a bad job board not adult site)

After seeing the TV Adverts, I still wondered...

In the age of digital do we need another print newspaper?

Has anyone told Trinity Mirror, whose pre-tax profits fell more than 17%, that newspaper sales have been dropping for YEARS? Figures from ABC Audit Data show the trend could lead to daily newspapers disappearing. I hope not as a coffee and anything other than a Sunday newspaper would just feel wrong.

It's not just newspapers, in the last few years we have also seen the printer turned off for the likes of Loaded, Zoo, Nuts and FHM. Then there was the announcement of Playboy putting clothes on...being more...well GQ

Although the 1st issue of The New Day was free when it distributed 2 million copies on Monday, it's price will rise from an initial trial price of 25p to 50p in 2 weeks time when it is targeting daily sales of 200,000 copies. More than the well established and respected (but more expensive Guardian).

The only print newspapers showing positive signs are

• The FREE London Evening Standard - in 2003 it had a circulation of 420,000 and now in 2016 it has more than doubled to 900,000 copies.
• The FREE Metro - in 2003 it had a circulation of 863,000 and now in 2016 it has risen to 1.3m copies.
• Then there is the FREE Shortlist and Stylist.

All do a fantastic job of entertaining and dirtying the fingers of commuters and littering the capital.

So how can Trinity Mirror make money out of The New Day? With their Newspaper Ad Revenues dropping 16.6% and The Daily Mail dropping 20% its a very tough market.

However there are some examples of publishers making money digitally and driving large volumes of traffic. Mail Online for example is the biggest English language digital newspaper website in the world.

JANUARY 2016 VISITORS & MoM % CHANGE  

1. Mail Online - 14,759,451 (+11.96%)
2. The Guardian - 8,764,814 (+11.69%)
3. Telegraph - 4,611,564 (+14.19%)
4. Mirror - 4,822,666 (+20.74%)
5. The Independent - 3,331,403 (+19.14%)
6. The Sun - 1,909,955 (+25.19%)
7. Metro - 1,418,152 (+26.93%)
8. Express - 1,399,663 (+31.38%)
9. Daily Star - 901,334 (+51.68%) 

So whats The New Day website like?

Well....?

THEY HAVEN'T GOT ONE!!!

JUST A FANCY HOLDING PAGE

OK it's probably coming soon, but its more than a little shocking that they haven't launched the newspaper and website in parallel and taken advantage of the usual big brands spending their large digital media budgets. 

Having said all that, The New Day is a good read, they have tried to do a few things differently with sport in the centre pages and some nice "vs." debate led articles.

They also seem more reader centric than most and are begging for feedback to shape the newspapers' future.

Time will only tell if it's successful, but let's hope The New Day get enough readers interested and brands keeping it going long enough to find out, but I think I will stick to Feedly for my personalised selection of news.