Births
February saw the launch of Monocle, an upmarket news monthly, from Wallpaper* founder Tyler Brûlé. By July, the title was boasting 2,500 subscriptions.
Former Johnston Press executive Terry Johnson sparked a West Yorkshire newspaper battle when he unveiled his Wakefield Guardian and Pont and Cas Guardian weekly newspapers.
The Teesside Gazette in Middlesbrough broke new ground with the launch of ‘reverse-published’newspapers with content gleaned from its 23 hyper-local blogs. The blog sites, which target postcode areas, include breaking news, multimedia, community features, and user-generated content.
Crain’s Manchester Business became the first European newspaper launch for American publisher Crain Communications.
Trinity Mirror launched free evening versions of the Daily Record, Record PM, in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. KoS Media’s launch of eight free tabloid newspapers, websites and online television channels in a £1m venture flew in the faces of industry gloom-mongers.
The publisher of Kent on Sunday and the Saturday Observer created 20 new jobs across the businesses.
IPC invested £18m into the launch of high-street fashion weekly, Look, and celebrated a debut ABC figure of 318,907 in August.
Ex-IPC editorial director Mike Soutar followed in the footsteps of 2006’s succesful launch – free men’s weekly Sport – by launching Shortlist, a free weekly non-lads’ magazine in September.
ITV revived the News at Ten with Trevor McDonald, due to launch in January. It will be broadcast Monday to Thursday.
Deaths
The Bath Chronicle, one of the oldest newspapers in the country, switched from daily to weekly publication resulting in 15 editorial job losses. Its closure left the small city with no daily paper.
Following disappointing circulation and advertising revenue the Sentinel Sunday closed down. Its closure brought the total number of UK paid-for Sunday newspapers down to five.
Brooklands Group closed its music weekly Popworld Pulp, a spin-off of the popular Channel 4 TV programme, after two issues. This followed the closure of So London – an upmarket weekly for the capital – after producing just three issues.
IPC closed Fashion Inc, the bi-annual style spin-off from men’s monthly, Loaded.
Natmags’ online-only teen magazine, Jellyfish, failed to have the same impact as Dennis’ Monkey, and closed after a 20-week trial due do problems with distribution.
Bauer suspended publication of its newest title, In The Know, after just eight months on the newsstand, blaming poorer sales than expected.
Marriages/divorces
CNN announced the end of its 27-year relationship with Reuters, citing the potential expansion in its own resources.
This month German publisher Bauer paid £1.14bn for Emap’s consumer magsazines.
News Corporation took ownership of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.
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