Daily Star to cut price to 10p

The Daily Star‘s cover price will be slashed 50% to 10p from 1 July, the Independent reports.

Express Newspapers’ owner Richard Desmond is planning the move in a bid to increase the title’s circulation, which currently stands at 823,000 copies – a year on year fall of around 2%.

This could well start a price war with rivals the Sun (currently 20p) and Daily Mirror (currently 45p).

And in a Sunday Times article, Desmond is named as one of the potential bidders for RTL’s terrestrial channel Five, alongside Big Brother producer Endemol.

RBS recently called ITV “the most logical buyer of Five”, estimating that an acquisition could boost ITV’s earnings by 24%.

It said that a deal would see the ITV family’s share of the commercial audience increase from 36% to 45%, while its share of TV advertising would increase from 43% to 52%.