Regional publisher Archant will relaunch its Ipswich Evening Star newspaper next month reshaping publishing norms by moving its weekday classified supplements to a bumper Friday edition.
The bumper edition will see an increase in pagination to as many as 100 pages and price increase, when it launches at the end of September.
The paper currently retails for 47 pence at the newsstand. The new Friday cover price has yet to be set, however, the revamp will mean the Monday to Thursday edition of the paper will drop to 40 pence.
Shifting classified advertising to the end of the week will open up a ‘fabulous’amount of volume in the paper, editor Nigel Pickover told Press Gazette.
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Despite the early week editions reducing pagination, he said, the revamp will increase the amount of stories carried each day.
Pickover said: ‘It’s a value driven package. We think readers will believe they are getting better value overall from the new package.
‘We want to maintain audience levels Monday to Thursday and hope to increase sales on a Friday.”
Pickover detailed the planned changes to staff in briefings last week. The revamp will also see a new design for the paper which will which will be replicated online.
Editorial teams are currently reviewing dummies of the redesigned paper and testing a new editorial system introduced to integrate web and print processes.
According to the most recent circulation figures, the Evening Star sold an average of 17,548 papers each day during the second half of last year.
In October last year it emerged that Archant was planning to effectively merge the editorial teams of its two Ipswich-based daily papers, the East Anglian Daily Times and the Evening Star, the move placed a number of jobs at risk.
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