POST EDITOR BACKS WEEKLY MOVE

26-08-2009

Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves has backed plans to turn the paper into a weekly in the face of projected losses of £6 million next year for its owner Trinity Mirror Midlands.

Writing on his blog last night Reeves laid out the options for the future which include maintaining daily production, but with a reduced pagination and more agency copy.

He says this, “retains more editorial jobs than the weekly model, but will result in my view in a much weakened brand because the paper will represent less value for money for the reader, day-by-day.”

Thus he plumps for the option of the single issue a week, probably publishing on Thursday, with around 96 pages, plus commercial supplements and sections such as Post Property and Living magazine.

In Reeves view, “The weekly model will provide a much more comprehensive package of information, entertainment and advertising, and I believe will do more to preserve the brand values of the Post, and therefore offer a more sustainable future for the title.

“We think we will be able to retain most of the essential elements that exist in the current model and incorporate them in a weekly Post.”

He adds: “For the weekly model, we are even forecasting a modest circulation increase, based on the recent experiences of daily papers that have gone weekly.”

Reeves emphasises that this is the start of a consultation process with staff, although given his enthusiasm for weekly publication, it would be remarkable if the Post survives as a daily.

Only last year the paper was reformatted to a tabloid and Saturday production was halted.

Meanwhile the Birmingham Mail looks set to move to overnight production, like its stablemate the Coventry Telegraph, thus reducing its ability to react to breaking news.

No figure has been put on the scale of job losses, but more redundancies on both papers seem inevitable as the paper face up to the twin challenges of online news and the recession in ad revenues.

DISCUSS THIS ON THE STIRRER FORUM