Daily Mail owner plans Sunday tabloid

Daily Mail & General Trust could launch title next weekend to cash in on News of the World’s demise The owner of the Daily Mail is understood to be planning a new mass-market Sunday tabloid to cash in on the closure of the News of the World. Daily Mail & General Trust could launch the title as soon as next weekend, with a dummy edition planned for this Sunday. Possible names for the paper include the Sunday and the Sunday Lite, echoing DMGT’s now-defunct London freesheet , London Lite, according a report by Reuters . The news agency said former Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie, who left the paper last month to join the Mail , could be a columnist on the new launch. Rival Sunday titles have scrambled to fill the gap left by the News of the World, which was published for the final time last Sunday in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that on Friday led to the resignation of the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. DMGT already publishes the mid-market tabloid Mail on Sunday, which will up its print run this weekend, as will the red-top Sunday Mirror and the People, both owned by Trinity Mirror, with all three titles planning price cuts of up to 50% in some areas. Richard Desmond’s Daily Star Sunday is increasing its print run by 1.2m and launching a new magazine, OK! Extra. However, the launch of a brand new Sunday red-top tabloid by DMGT would dramatically raise the stakes in the battle for the 2.67 million readers who previously bought the News of the World, according to the ABC circulation figures published on Friday for June, the paper’s last full month of publication. News International is understood to be planning to launch a Sunday edition of the Sun to replace the News of the World as early as August, with the former NoW deputy editor Victoria Newton strongly tipped to be editor. Executives from NI are said to have been testing the water for a potentially swift launch of a Sunday edition of the Sun in conversations with advertisers and media buyers. The publisher will also be running full-page ads apologising for the phone-hacking scandal in the national press at the weekend, the News Corporation deputy chief operating officer, James Murdoch, confirmed on Friday . DMGT announced this week it was raising the price of the Daily Mail in a bid to counter rising newsprint costs and a deteriorating advertising market, prompting the company’s share price to hit an 18-month low. The Mail on Sunday is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closure of the News of the World, with an average sale in May of 1.92m copies. It is followed by the Sunday Mirror, with an average circulation of 1.09m, and the Sunday Times, with 1.05m. The People averaged 481,224, ahead of the Daily Star Sunday with 305,984. A DMGT spokesman had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . Daily Mail Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Daily Mail & General Trust Media business Newspapers Daily Mail & General Trust News of the World News International John Plunkett guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 16, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.