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Newspaper print decline on the turn as Trinity plans launch

Purchases, closures alongside both print and digital investments are reshaping the newspaper industry
February 25, 2016

The launch of the UK's first standalone newspaper in three decades could be a key marker on the road to reversing the decline of the print newspaper industry.

This is according to Trinity Mirror (TNI) chief executive Simon Fox, whose company plans to launch The New Day on 29 February, a daily paper which appeals to time-pressed readers. The move is an intriguing one given millions of people can - and do - access their news for free across hundreds of different websites. This now common-place trend has seen media owners prioritise their digital output over that of their print titles in recent years.

But the Daily Mirror publisher's move clearly bucks this trend and comes as Johnston Press (JPR) is also betting big on print: the regional publisher has agreed to buy The Independent's cut-price daily paper, the i, for £24m.

The cover price of the The New Day will be 50p after an introductory period, compared with 40p for the i. Although more than a million people have stopped buying newspapers in the past two years, Trinity Mirror's directors are confident they can tempt many of them back with the right product. They view print investments, alongside the transition to digital publishing, as key to the group's success.

Johnston Press, meanwhile, looks set to become the UK's fourth largest news publisher - selling around 600,000 papers a day - by acquiring the i. Management expects the paper to complement key brands such as The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post and generate cash it can plough into digital and regional publishing. It also plans to launch an 'i' branded website and other digital offerings. It may hope to emulate the success of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT). The Daily Mail publisher's flagship website, MailOnline, grew its global daily user base by 11 per cent to 3.7m in the three months to December, fuelling a 27 per cent rise in underlying digital revenues.