They are circling. The UK Sunday Papers are planning to see that they can pick off the carcass of the News of The World with three newspaper groups actively perusing the papers Sunday previous buyers and readers.
It’s going to be particularly interesting to see, firstly, the contraction in the Sunday market in the wake of the papers closure and, secondly, who will be the main benefactors. The contraction is, I think, inevitable as of the 2.6m NoW copies sold every week, many would have been a secondary purchase. That second paper may now be abandoned by many, so I can’t see the market staying at 9.86m in the UK.
First to swoop was, unusually, the Mail on Sunday. The have mounted a massive Direct Marketing campaign starting on Monday 18th where they will target potential NoW homes across the country with their offering.
They are an unusual suitor of the NoW reader where the MoS has 66% of its readers in the ABC social economic group and the NoS 61% of its readers in the C2DE strata. I suppose there is still the 40%, but its hard to see.
The Daily Star Sunday (wonder did the consider reopening here?) is planning to print 2m copies (up from 600k) and the Mirror and People will double their print run to 3m combined.
One thing is for certain, there’ll be plenty to recycle on Monday.
