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The end of an error as digital claims another victim

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RANGERS DEAD FRONT PAGEAs you read this article on your phone/tablet/laptop/pc the chances are that you never even heard of ‘The New Day’.

After two months Trinity Mirror is set to pull the plug on another doomed venture into print as the digital revolution claims another costly victim.

The New Day was supposed to sweep up readers from the closure of print edition of The Independent but with sales of around 40,000 a day it never got close to the target of 200,000 sales

With no real Scottish content or interest in sport The New Day made little impact on Scotland where the pro independence The National is holding it’s ground within the group that publishes The Herald and Evening Times.

When The Independent opted to go online only it instantly saved fortunes in production and distribution costs as they prioritised a new diverse global audience capable of accessing news from a variety of sources- with advertisers keen to piggy back into that audience.

Like it or not newspaper publishers have to go down that route. There is still an audience for print but it’s a rapidly declining and ageing market with advertisers more interested in reaching the younger, tech savvy, commuter market delivered by The Metro.

Ahead of the launch of The New Day Trinity chief executive Simon Fox said: “Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years but we believe a large number of them can be tempted back with the right product.

“Revitalising print is a core part of our strategy in parallel with digital transformation and there doesn’t have to be a choice between the two – newspapers can live in the digital age if they have been designed to offer something different.”

It seems that revitalising print has been ditched after two months with The New Day expected to be published for the final time tomorrow.

Any print production carries massive risk and costs, the notion that there is a latent demand to pay for news from a politically neutral, socially responsive publication seems far fetched.

Over the last decade news delivery has been revolutionised with no traditional publisher able to handle the transformation as they hedge their bets between bringing in print sales and attracting huge, but not particularly lucrative, online hits.

The New Day won’t be the last casualty as the battle for news moves online with the traditional power houses struggling to adapt to the new reality after generations of monopoly and domination.

With the economies of scale that can be achieved by clicking the publish rather than print key the digital drive is going to claim more scalps than the latest ‘savior’ created by an out of touch Trinity Mirror management team.

Happy clicking!

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