Trinity Mirror subsidiary Media Scotland has more than halved the price of the Paisley Daily Express and bumped up pagination in a relaunch of the 138-year-old title.
From Monday the cover price will temporarily drop from 45p to 20p, and the paper will feature more content based on ‘user-generated’stories and pictures.
The Paisley Daily Express is one of the smallest daily newspapers in the country with an average sale of 7,137 in the second half of 2011. This was down 7.6 per cent year on year.
Trinity said the Express was the first Media Scotland title to benefit from a ‘total redesign’that is being rolled out across 17 regional titles over the next two months.
It comes after the ContentWatch editorial system was introduced at the daily and its sister titles, along with the creation of a single production unit for all publications at Media Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow.
Seven jobs were lost as part of the restructure, which saw production staff at Hamilton, Stirling, Kilmarnock and Ayr transfer to the Central Quay office in Glasgow in July.
The company also re-established the title of editor on all of its Scottish papers
Express editor John Hutcheson said: ‘This is a hugely exciting time for everyone connected with the newspaper.
‘Our loyal readers will be delighted with the new look as well as our new columnists and new features. And ,at just 20p, the paper will provide even greater value for money in these tough times.
‘This is the start of a new era for our historic title and we can’t wait to hear the feedback.”
Allan Rennie, editor-in-chief of Media Scotland, said: “We’re delighted to relaunch our flagship local newspaper, the Paisley Daily Express, which demonstrates our continued commitment to local newspapers in Scotland.
“Our 20p promotion will help persuade the people of Paisley to take a fresh look at the newspaper and the revamped website will reflect the relaunch online.
“The new look across our weekly titles is the culmination of three months hard work by local editors and teams and underpinning this is our investment in technology that ensures all our local titles will have a healthy future.
‘The introduction of ContentWatch gives us the ability to seamlessly publish great stories and pictures in any format, whether it is in print, web, smartphone app or e-paper.”
Media Scotland was created in December 2011 when Trinity merged the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail with sister company Scottish and Universal Newspapers.
It resulted in the departure of Bruce Waddell, who had been editor-in-chief of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail for the last eight years, and saw Rennie appointed editor-in-chief of Media Scotland.
The managing director of Trinity Mirror Nationals, Mark Hollinshead, also took on the role of MD for Media Scotland
In January, Trinity closed five offices in Scotland with the loss of 35 non-editorial jobs in areas including telesales, merchandising and reception.
The Edinburgh office of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail was closed, along with Dumbarton, Airdrie, Irvine and Paisley offices.
Media Scotland unveiled its new senior editorial structure in February. Daily Record deputy editor Murray Foote was made group editor and Stephen Martin, the Scotland editor of the Sunday Mirror, was appointed group content editor.
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