THE UK’s top-selling regional daily morning newspaper, the Aberdeen-based The Press and Journal, is to go compact every day of the week, in the new year.
The daily introduced a compact edition on Saturdays several years ago, and switched to compact on Mondays in July this year.
The switch was first announced to staff yesterday, with editor, Damian Bates, heading to Inverness today, to speak to more colleagues.
Bates, who was previously editor of the P&J’s sister newspaper, the Aberdeen Evening Express, told allmediascotland: “Our Saturday and Monday compact editions have been incredibly well received by readers. They have been asking when the P&J will go compact across the rest of the week.
“We have listened and are keen to give them what they want. It’s been a massive team effort involving editorial, marketing, advertising, circulation, distribution, production and promotions to get this launch ready – and there’s still quite a bit of work to be done.
“There’s going to be a lot of noise about us going compact. Watch this space. The Press and Journal is a brilliant newspaper with a wonderful heritage and we’re very excited about the future.”
The P&J – which is now part of the Dundee-based DC Thomson media group through its Aberdeen Journals Ltd subsidiary – has been the top-selling regional morning newspaper in the UK for a number of years.
According to Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for the six months to the end of June, the P&J had an average daily sale of 71,044 – a 4.6 per cent drop on 12 months previously.
The P&J, which for many years was an integral part of Thomson Regional Newspapers (owned by Canadian media magnate, Lord Thomson) was bought by DC Thomson from the Daily Mail and General Trust group five years ago.
First hitting the streets as a weekly in 1747, and known as The Aberdeen’s Journal, it was published on a weekly basis for 128 years until it became a daily newspaper in 1876.
