Evening Standard relaunches as weekly London Standard
The Evening Standard has officially relaunched as The London Standard as the newspaper looks to reposition itself from a daily to a weekly title.
Initial weekly distribution will be set at 150,000. Copies will be sold beginning at 4pm across the capital on Thursdays.
The London Standard is estimating initial readership will reach 375,000 readers (or 2.5 readers per copy).
The Evening Standard announced it would shutter its daily operations in May, with strategic focus shifting to the brand’s digital offering while retaining a weekly print edition.
As a result, around 150 members of staff were expected to have been made redundant, including more than half of its 120 full-time journalists.
Earlier this week, Deadline reported that the Standard was looking to expand its use of generative AI following the lay-offs, such as through plans to “revive” the late art critic Brian Sewell via AI to review a new Vincent van Gogh exhibition at The National Gallery.
‘Manifestly important to London’s media diet’
The decision to move to a weekly occurred amid broader financial troubles for the newspaper, exacerbated by changes to work and commuting habits during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Companies House filings, the Standard has not been consistently profitable in recent years, posting double-digit losses between 2017 and 2022.
The Standard named former GQ editor Dylan Jones as editor-in-chief in June 2023 to aid in reviving the brand, with Bloomberg reporting that he joined on the condition that the physical newspaper would not shut down.
Since joining, Jones oversaw the relaunch of the outlet’s website under the brand name The Standard and made a number of strategic appointments to editorial leadership.
Commenting on the weekly relaunch, Jones said: “We are embarking on an incredibly exciting new journey and I am convinced that the latest iteration of the Standard — in print, online, on social — is a manifestly important addition to London’s media diet. A diet that the Standard has owned for nearly 200 years.”
Evening Standard succumbs to commuting changes and goes weekly
Jones called the new weekly publication “an upmarket celebration of the city in all its glory” and promised to deliver “quality at scale for a culturally savvy, desirable audience”.
Since the Standard‘s move to stop publishing daily, a number of startups have sought to fill the gap left in the market for news coverage of the capital. These include a newsletter by startup Mill Media, which expects to launch by the end of this year, as well as a new independent project by ex-Guardian media editor Jim Waterson, London Centric.
Meanwhile, business title City AM recently struck a deal to take the vacant spots in the Standard‘s daily distribution network.
OOH campaign promotes relaunch
In support of the rebrand, the Standard has launched an OOH campaign on 700 roadside and digital screens across London, including over 30 of JCDecaux’s large-format London Towers sites.
Additional creative street activations have been created at Outernet London, created by design consultancy Mark Porter Associates.
“It’s a big day for London and a big day for the Standard,” said chief commercial officer James White. “We’re thrilled to be marking such a momentous occasion with a huge multimedia campaign across the best city in the world. We can’t wait to showcase all that we have to offer to our valuable readers and advertisers alike.”