Metro North West Changes Name After Losing Appeal

Associated Newspapers has changed the name of the North West edition of its Metro title after losing an appeal to use the masthead in the city of Manchester (see Associated Loses Court Appeal Over Metro Title). The paper is now called News North West and continues to distribute in the region.

The group lost its right to use the name last week after an interim judgement ruled that the Guardian Group owned the masthead through its Manchester Metro News title, which was established as a weekly paper 12 years ago. The judgment ruled that Associated must either change the name of its title or remove it from the city.

Associated, however, itself won an injunction against the Swedish Modern Times Group (SMT) to use the Metro masthead in Newcastle. Both groups launched free morning papers called Metro in the city but an interlocutory injunction on Friday stated that the Swedish group did not own the rights to the name within Newcastle.

The title will relaunch tomorrow and will be called Morning News. Managing director of the paper, Adrian Martin, said: “Now that the name issue is out of the way we can concentrate on the real issue which is to provide the people of Tyneside with a quality morning paper.”

It is unknown at present whether SMT will appeal against the court’s ruling.

Associated Newspapers: 020 7938 6000