The New Day: industry reacts to launch edition
This week Trinity Mirror launched a new daily national newspaper, The New Day.
The first standalone national daily newspaper for 30 years, The New Day will run up to 40 pages per copy, Monday to Friday, covering news and topical content in a ‘politically neutral’ and ‘balanced’ way – “without telling the reader what to think”.
It was available for free on its first day (Monday 29 February), before trialling at 25p for two weeks and 50p from then on.
Here, experts from Carat, Total Media and MC&C give their verdicts on what they’ve seen so far.
“Coming hot on the heels of the Indy going all digital, it’s an interesting and brave move launching The New Day as the first new print title in 30 years.
“There can be no doubt that we are marching relentlessly towards an increasingly digital economy, but that doesn’t mean everything we’ll be doing will be digital in nature. Rather, it means we need to be thinking digitally in everything we do; for analogue media or digital media.
“The New Day has a digital feel to it. It’s visual, quick and gives me an overview of important and trivial things all together in a neat and tidy package. It’s not organised like a traditional paper, but organised with a digital mind set, less linear with trivial variety packaged around some harder hitting subject matter (based on issue one!).
“So will this resonate with advertisers? I’ll go with a maybe – it’s all about the audience it attracts – not necessarily the size of the audience (although some critical mass will be important) but rather the quality and depth of relationship that audience develops with the brand.
“It’s also going to be important how they leverage their social extensions, keeping the reader dialogue going across platforms and over time.”
“It was with anticipation that I grabbed my copy of New Day, a trend-bucking moment for Trinity Mirror as they look to harness the ‘big middle’ audience between the Sun and the Guardian. With a free opening issue and a £5m marketing campaign, it is clear that this is not just a skirmish into the unknown for Trinity Mirror.
“The paper itself is premised to be un-biased and a politically neutral view on the big issues of the day, a position once held by another national newspaper. On inspection it seems they are making a good stab at this.
“The articles are balanced with both sides of the given debate being given column inches. The editorial is made up of lots of opinions with Alison Philips curating a host of different commentators not just the same journalists opinions. It’s short (40 pages) and sets out to inform and not bombard, they aim to do this by not repeating themselves on a daily basis, something that only time will confirm.
“The layout is fresh and pretty easy to navigate, something that I have always respected The Week for. You know what you are getting and where to find it and I envisage this being the same. As an avid sportsman I was interested to see the sport section in the middle but then if you are going to break moulds why not go the whole hog.
“From an advertiser’s point of view, it will be interesting to see how commercial and editorial approach the coming weeks and months and whether they work together in a harmonised way that achieves a number of business goals or falls into the segregated departments of old that many argue is an ongoing thorn in the side of the publisher industry.
“It’s brave, it’s bold and it certainly wasn’t expected by those within the industry. However, there are few publishers out there who can say that they have mastered the perfect business model so why not give it a go? After all, the 29th of February only comes round every four years.”
“Trinity Mirror issued a strong message with the launch of its new paper New Day: print isn’t dead.
“In an age where digital is considered the future, Trinity Mirror took a step in the opposite direction. Not only is the new property a print publication, but it has no digital presence at all.
“On the surface it’s a smart move from Trinity, as it looks to bring in an entirely new audience. From what we can see so far, the paper is aimed more at women than men, and by avoiding the traditional online accompaniment, Trinity Mirror is aiming to restore the presence of print for those who may have moved to digesting news online only.
“It also feels like less of a risk for a publisher that’s used to print. Maintaining a digital version of a paper, constantly updated, is extremely costly. But TMG is set up to print, and is only committing to doing so five day a week.
“However, there’s already been some criticism about the lack of ad spots, and until we start seeing some circulation figures, advertisers will have to make a call on whether it’s worth the investment at this point in. Only time will tell whether the paper’s feature-led, politics-free approach pays off for advertisers.”