The Evening Standard print newspaper will rebrand as The London Standard when it goes weekly next month as it returns to a focus on news and analysis from the city.
Staff were told on Wednesday that the new weekly newspaper will be published on Thursdays, starting on 26 September.
The formerly daily free newspaper has already reduced its publishing schedule and currently circulates copies from Tuesday to Thursday each week.
The final edition of the current incarnation of the Evening Standard will be published on Thursday 19 September.
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Interim chief executive Paul Kanareck also told staff in an email, seen by Press Gazette, that the “last edition of the current ES Magazine” will go out on 12 September. Staff were previously told the company would “consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency”.
The Standard announced in May that it would drop down from a daily to a weekly print schedule as part of a digital shift prompted by “shorter commuting weeks, widespread Wi-Fi along our commuting routes and the desire for our readers to consume ever-richer content across a variety of platforms and devices”.
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Kanareck said the staff consultation over redundancies, which was expected to cut approximately half the editorial jobs at the business, has now “substantially concluded”. Staff previously expressed “widespread dismay” at the offered redundancy terms.
Kanareck said the changes have “required a significant restructure of the operations and the board thanks everyone for their ongoing commitment during this difficult time”.
“As previously highlighted, we will enhance our focus on our digital platforms and this will be supported with the launch of a weekly newspaper celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture, politics, news and the drumbeat of life in the world’s greatest city…
“Our focus and attention now moves onto collaborating with the team to establish a fundamentally new culture and operating model with clear and shared objectives.”
Staff will meet in the office next month to “cover our strategy and vision for digital and the new weekly newspaper”, he continued.
Kanareck also thanked “all our staff leaving the business as a result of these changes for their dedication and hard work over many years. We fully appreciate the quality journalism, award winning advertising campaigns and the determination to publish and distribute the Evening Standard and ES Magazine, often under challenging and unprecedented circumstances. We wish you all the best for the future.”
The company’s accounts published last year showed its losses were up 14%, marking its sixth straight year of losses.
In July, before the reduction in the number of days it is distributed, the Evening Standard put out an average of 276,885 copies per day. Pre-Covid, in February 2020, it distributed 787,447 copies per day.
The ES Magazine had an average weekly distribution of 181,312 in the first half of this year.
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