Mirror Group Abandons Plans To Relaunch Sporting Life
The Mirror Group confirmed to Newsline this afternoon that it has abandoned plans to relaunch its title The Sporting Life.
The group merged the title into The Racing Post early last year (see Newsline), but maintained that it intended to relaunch the title as the first daily sports-only newspaper.
It emerged today however that the group will not be relaunching the title as a newspaper, although the brand is alive and well on the website Sporting-Life.Com .
After the merger in April 1998, The Racing Post captured most of Sporting life’s readers (see Newsline), and according to a Mirror Group spokesman, now commands 85% of that particular market – its circulation figure for January 1999 was 59,983, and is making a profit. Research by the group found that there wasn’t room for another sports title in that sector of the market. The other sports-only title on the market, Sport First recently announced that it was looking for a buyer/investor (see Newsline).
A spokesperson at Mirror Group denied rumours that it was planning to sell off Live TV, and that although the group didn’t plan to plough many more funds into the operation, it was expected to be working at a break even level fairly soon. The Mirror Group is planning to divest its shares in the Scottish Media Group in the near future.
The groups financial results can be found on today’s Newsline.
Mirror Group: 0171 293 3000