Sympathy but no surprise as readers and pundits react to The New Day’s closure

Readers of The New Day have expressed disappointment on hearing that the UK’s newest daily title is to close after just two months, but many said they weren’t surprised by the news.

“It was a damn fine read,” said Barbara Ann Clough on Facebook, before adding: “Must admit I believe I was the only one buying it from our local co-op.”

The comment came as The New Day editor Alison Phillips took to social media this morning to share her thoughts on the paper’s demise, revealed last night, after it failed to make enough sales to stay afloat. About a dozen editorial and production staff will be let go as a result.

More than 360 people have commented in response to Phillips’ post at the time of writing.

Some offered their commiserations and praised the paper for being “different”, “innovative” and “daring” while others said it had “got the tone badly wrong” and “felt like an experiment”.

Sue Himycz said: “Sorry you’re closing. The New Day was a great little paper – so different. Will be sad to see it go.” Martin Phillp offered his “commiserations to the editorial team” but said the paper “got the tone badly wrong on issue one and never really recovered”. Michael Brooke added: “If it’s not too late, should call tomorrow’s edition “Last Day”.”

They joined myriad voices casting an opinion on the Trinity Mirror-owned title’s failure, including media blogger and City University lecturer Roy Greenslade, Independent editor-at-large Amol Rajan and Guardian head of media Jane Martinson.

Greenslade said the paper’s demise “was no surprise” and that newspapers “born out of market research” had a “poor track record” in Britain – New Day aimed to appeal to people who said they didn’t like traditional newspapers and had a focus on attracting women readers.

He also said Phillips was “hobbled” by the paper’s early evening deadline due to sharing presses with the Daily Mirror, resulting in “no breaking news and no sports results”.

Martinson said it had been a “brave” but “ill conceived” attempt to produce a new newspaper at a “terrible time” in the market. “It never quite managed to reach those two million readers that had been lost [by traditional newspapers] over the past couple of years,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “The pricing was all wrong, people didn’t quite know what it was, what it stood for and it just failed to get the audience.”

Rajan said: “The New Day was not a news-led product, it was a features-led product and in that sense it was a unique proposition but I don’t think it was a compelling proposition.” He added New Day’s failure had been in trying “to emulate the i without really understanding its news-led DNA”.