Greenslade BLOG: The SUN on Sunday...

The Sun on Sunday? Maybe, but it will be tough to find readers

Will The Sun on Sunday work? When will it appear? What will it look like? What will it contain?

I'd guess these are also questions still being pondered in Wapping because News International's editorial executives know how difficult it will be to create a new Sunday title from scratch.

And it will be doubly difficult because it has to avoid imitating the News of the World. Then again, is anyone going to buy a News of the World Lite?

After all, three red-top Lite NoWs already exist - the Sunday Mirror, The People and the Daily Star on Sunday. And they are finding it difficult to hang on to readers.

Over the coming weeks, many of the NoW's "loyal" 2.7m buyers will surely gravitate towards that rival trio. Others will possibly go upmarket to the Mail on Sunday.

A lot of people will give up reading any Sunday paper at all. Newspaper closures reduce the size of the market (as Rupert Murdoch's closure of Today in 1995 illustrated).

I've suggested in my Guardian article today that a new pop paper should adopt an agenda more like that of tabloids past.

But I concede that society is very different. In this age of celebrity - itself a media creation - tabloids aimed at a mass market have been locked into providing entertainment rather than information.

Indeed, in the overlapping age of the internet, information is being consumed on screen rather than in print.

So constructing a saleable Sun on Sunday - a Not The News of the World - may be beyond even the skills of Murdoch's editorial battalion however much is spent on marketing and promotion.

I'm not alone in my scepticism. Ian Burrell in The Independent points to anxiety within News Int itself, and Katherine Rushton in the Daily Telegraph says News Int shouldn't even consider the idea.

She writes: "It seems unthinkable that a Sun on Sunday could launch this year – at least, not without a backlash and a serious threat to its long-term prospects."

She quotes three "brand experts", one of whom thinks the Murdochs would be "crazy" to launch a Sun on Sunday.

Like me, Rushton raises the problem of the NoW's readers forming "new habits and loyalties" prior to a launch.

Then there is the ad revenue problem. Advertisers will be wary of being linked in any way to a tainted brand.

Despite the difficulties he will face, one initiative that Murdoch is sure to rebuff is the reported bid by "a consortium of media and business figures" who wish to "revive the title as a responsible investigative newspaper."

Its public face, Sue Douglas, explains that the plan would involve taking on the existing News of the World team who, she says, "haven't done anything inappropriate or unlawful as far as we know."

She adds: "The News of the World's trouble is really about misdemeanours of management."

Hmmm. I don't think that's quite true. The great majority are probably innocent. But the same cannot be said about the entire 200.

Anyway, the plan is merely pie-in-the-sky. Murdoch won't let it happen.
I note that for the immediate future, one component of the the NoW, its glossy magazine, Fabulous, will be distributed with the Saturday issue of The Sun.

Will advertisers go on supporting it, however? Anyway, some advertisers may gradually disengage from all News Int publications.

One further point, culled from Mark Sweney's Guardian article about the effect of the NoW's closure on the whole Sunday newspaper market, concerns the fragile state of that market.

It has been in rapid decline in the past 10 years, falling faster and further than the daily market.

He quotes Rob Lynam, head of press and media agency MEC, as saying: "The Sunday model is busted."

That's been my view for several years. Some Sunday titles never really justified their existence in commercial terms from launch onwards - notably the Independent on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph and Daily Star on Sunday.

As Lynam said: "The cost base on Sunday titles is significantly higher than running a daily and publishers are looking to reduce overheads."

There are other titles that just about hang on too, like The People, The Observer and the Sunday Express.

I should stress that I'm talking about the business model, not about their editorial worth. Advertisers have grown increasingly reluctant to buy space on Sundays as readers have begun to turn their backs on such titles.

Seen in that context, maybe, just maybe, there will never be a Sun on Sunday after all.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jul/11/sun-rupert-murdoch?CMP=twt_gu