Amid speculation of a fall in sales, Trinity Mirror has confirmed that it will be holding The New Day’s cover price at 25p.
The New Day launched last week (Monday 29 February) with the intention of trialling at 25p for two weeks and 50p thereafter.
However, following reports that there has been a 25% decrease in sales within its first 10 days in the market, the publisher has said that it will continue to run at 25p “for a few weeks”.
“As we said when we launched the paper, the marketing and pricing positioning is fairly fluid as we are still launching the title,” Trinity said in a statement on Wednesday.
“While we anticipated probably offering the trial price for the first couple of weeks, this was always yet to be confirmed.”
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While no official circulation figures have yet been released – Trinity said there are “no set plans at the moment” but it will be something they “get to in time” – it is understood that on its first day of launch, when handed out for free, The New Day generated 150,000 sales.
The Guardian reports that sales declined to 120,000 a week later (Monday 7 March) and were at 110,000 on Tuesday (8 March).
Trinity told Newsline that the decision to keep the cover price at 25p is not a direct result of a decline in sales.
“The plan for trial pricing was always going to be flexible,” a spokesperson said. “The priority is for us to keep the momentum going, drive sampling and encourage readers into a five day a week habit.”
