ashbelmac01: Paper goes from free to paid-for as advertising slumps

Friday, 19 August 2011

Paper goes from free to paid-for as advertising slumps

A largely free newspaper, the Bangor Mail, is being relaunched next week as a fully paid-for title.

More than 80% of the paper's 8,500 audited distribution (ABC: July-Dec 2010) was given away free. But its publisher, Trinity Mirror, is terminating the hybrid model.

Readers will now be expected to pay 80p a copy, though there are discount vouchers available for the first four issues.

In announcing its move, Trinity says its Mail series of papers in north Wales have been a consistently strong performers in recent years.

Maybe they have. But I think the real story here is about the difficulties publishers are facing in trying to fund free papers in the face of a continuing decline in advertising revenue.

Note that the same company, as I reported three days ago, has suspended publication of six free weeklies in Scotland.

Sources: Newspaper Society/Bangor Mail/HoldTheFrontPage