Reach, the UK’s largest regional newspaper publisher says the home delivery distribution model for its free newspapers is “no longer sustainable”. It is closing the Solihull News this month, a title with a circulation of 44,786, according to December 2017 audit figures.
Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror) attributed the struggle to a “continued decline in local print advertising, particularly in the key property platform”.
In Australia we have been insulted from newspaper closures with plenty of our titles delivering lower circulation numbers that US and UK titles that have closed. I suspect this is in part due to the propping up of titles by newsagents through the provision of low cost distribution.
My local freebie, Eastern Courier, claims an 86,000 circulation, but does anyone believe it. Certainly not my customers who haven’t seen a delivery in the last year. Which might explain why its readership is some 20% lower than its claimed circulation.
Coca Cola bottling in Adelaide closed this week. The hard decisions are being taken in some industries. Some still live in a fictitious world and hurtle towards the cliff.