Wrexham-based daily the Evening Leader has changed its printing arrangements to become a morning and an evening paper.
The Monday to Thursday edition of the 21,000-selling paper will continue to be printed in the morning on the day of publication ready for distribution in the afternoon and evening.
But the Friday edition has been redesigned as the “Weekend” edition and is printed overnight so that it is on newsstands throughout the day.
The Friday edition includes a 20-page local guide to the weekend.
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Many, if not most, of the UK’s evening papers have switched to overnight printing in recent years. While the move means they miss on-the-day news, they make big savings by removing the need for their own delivery network, and they also get more time on the newsstand.
The Evening Leader, which publishes four daily geographical editions in North Wales and Chester, printed its first morning edition last Friday and claims it has already had a positive response from readers and an increased interest from advertisers.
Editor-in-chief Barrie Jones said: “With all the changes in reader choices and expectation we thought this was a great way of presenting our daily title in a more modern way.
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“We are facing the same challenges as most other local evening titles and will look at breaking the traditional publishing model whenever there is advantage in doing so.
“We have put together a Friday package that we feel will be of real interest to a local audience for the weekend and made the decision to make it available as early as we could on a Friday.
We have also tried to maintain news and sport deadlines as late as possible so that the weekend edition is as up to date as possible. So far the reaction has been very positive.”
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