What PRs Should Make Of a New National UK Newspaper Hitting The Shelves
The launch of The Canary this week flies against the consensus view that papers are dying. But can it work?
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A rare and mystical event happened this week – almost on a par with one of those comets that swings by the earth once or twice a generation.
A new newspaper launched in the UK.
The left-wing Canary hit the shelves in 6,500 newsagents (price £1.20) offering a different perspective to “corporate media” and explaining that “the threat of a Reform government in 2029” was a driving force behind the launch. It has plans to expand its operation in June and unlike the rest of the media has been recruiting staff. It ultimately wants to reach a point where it can sell 100,000 copies a day.
It’s a bold move. The last UK national newspaper launch, Trinity Mirror’s positive newsbrand The New Day, was in 2016 and lasted a mere two months before the bosses made the decision to stop the presses.
And in a previous life, as I’ve mentioned before, I was part of the team that set up The Sportsman - a sports betting and horse racing paper that was taking on the Racing Post. It lasted about seven months before the funders pulled the plug.
This launch is interesting and, dare I say it, just slightly more likely to survive than its predecessors. It’s not commercially driven like other launches (included in that list Murdoch’s California Post earlier this year which we covered here).
Yes, it would like to make money but the aim, as the editor explains here, is to attract the older, largely working-class audience not being served by print media in the UK (around 11 million people the Canary believes do not vote consistently and are not politically engaged by “corporate media”).
So, why is it likely to survive and even thrive?
