The Sun on Sunday to launch next Sunday
The Sun on Sunday will hit the newsstands next Sunday (26th Feb). The announcement was splashed across the front page of The Sun this morning.
Last week Rupert Murdoch flew in to London to take charge of the situation regarding allegations of paying government officials which has resulted in the arrest of 10 Sun journalists.
In an address to staff last week, Murdoch announced that the “Sun on Sunday would launch very soon”. It has surprised many people that its launch is happening this quickly.
News International will have a busy week securing advertising deals for the first edition and investing in marketing communications for the launch and the subsequent weeks of promotional activity. A few days ago News International announced that they would be consolidating their advertising account into WPP and setting up a multi-disciplined group dubbed ‘Team News’.
It is not yet known what the cover price will be for the first edition but it is expected to be very competitive to win back sale from rivals that benefitted from the closure of the News of the World. It is estimated that a million copies were lost in the Sunday newspaper market when the News of the World closed last July. The last recorded average for the defunct paper was 2.6 million.
It is also not clear yet what supplement will appear with the Sunday edition. Following the closure of the News of the World, its magazine Fabulous was retained and moved to publication with Saturday’s Sun.
Sun editor, Dominic Mohan, will be in overall charge of the seven day editorial operation. There will obviously be an increase in editorial costs but many journalists are expected to work across the week. This will deliver cost savings compared to the sums involved in running two editorial teams of The Sun and News of the World previously. Some commentators mooted last year that the closure of the News of the World was not a major sacrifice financially as it was just about making a profit. The ability to radically restructure the editorial operation means the business can be more profitable especially built on the scale of an already very profitable Sun.
The news about the imminent launch of the Sun on Sunday shows once again how exciting and vibrant the newspaper industry can be. As we know, it’s an industry with the capacity to make headlines itself.
Anyone who claims to have a crystal ball that helps them predict what is going to happen to newspapers might as well take a coal hammer to it today.
Recent events show that newspapers – above all media – are a vital force for setting the agenda and shaping opinions. As proven and powerful news brands, newspapers start conversations that others follow.