The journalist behind a new three-times a week paper for Scarborough has said there is a ‘huge gap for daily news’following the decision by Johnston Press to take town’s daily paper weekly.
The Johnston Press-owned Scarborough Evening News, which had a daily circulation of 10,637, went weekly earlier this month.
Editor of monthly magazine the Scarborough Advertiser editor Matthew Thurston has announced plans for the Scarborough Voice to launch in September with an initial print run of 10,000, available every Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
Initially The Voice will be 20 pages, however Thurston hopes to double pagination if the paper is successful.
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The Voice will initially employ eight full time staff, three of which will be journalists.
Two of these journalists lost their jobs at the Scarborough Evening News as a result of the weekly move.
Thurston says he is confident about taking on the town’s established paper.
He said: ‘Well the Evening News isn’t Evening anymore, its weekly… there’s a huge gap for daily news, there’s an awful lot of news in the area, and people can’t wait for a weekly, people want a daily newspaper.
‘While a newspaper every Friday might be good for what’s on at the weekend in terms of sports, come Monday people want to know what’s happened, and they’re waiting another week for the match report.”
The Voice will cost 25p, this compares to 50p when the Evening News was a daily and the £1 price the weekly edition charges now.
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