Safe on Sunday - a review of the first Sunday edition of The Sun
First impressions by Jenny McManus, Account Director - Press
Rupert Murdoch believes that the first Sunday edition of the Sun sold 3 million copies of its new paper and tweeted to that effect yesterday. In a very public display Mr Murdoch spent Sunday morning touring various newsagents in Central London to try and gauge a feel for the paper's launch amongst the paper buying public. 3 million was the golden number and it is fair to say that if this was met then it is a great achievement for News International. As a rough rule of thumb, the Scottish sales are likely to be 12% of total sales and therefore around 360k – we should know later today more on sales figures and it will be interesting to know how the other Sunday pops performed yesterday. All 4 Sunday redtops were priced at 50p, however in Scotland the Sunday Mail remained at £1.30.
It is very much the seventh day Sun with little real difference to the daily paper and very similar to the Saturday product. The paper is being criticised in the press this morning as having too fast a pace for a Sunday paper and it will be interesting to see how the product evolves in the coming months.
With all the current controversy going on with the Leveson enquiry, the Sun have played it very safe with regards to content with little in the way of scoops or sensationalism. The front page of the Scottish paper unveiling the ‘day of destiny’ is not, in my opinion, as meaty as the revealing of a celebrity affair or such like.
There is far more for the female reader in the paper and columnists such as Katie Price and Nancy Dell’olio are in to add a bit of ‘glamour’ – in a quote in today’s Metro Katie Price aims to write the column ‘all by herself’.
45 pages out of the 120 page book were dedicated to sport and this includes the 28-page supergoals supplement. Scottish columnists include Richard Gough, Steven Naismith and Davie Provan and Roy Keane also covered Scottish issues in the Scottish edition of the paper.
We believe that with all the investment behind this launch, plus Murdoch’s motivation to make it a success, the Sun on Sunday will quickly become a part of the Sunday routine for many readers. It is thought that had the NotW still been around today the circulation would be sitting at the 2.5 million mark and whether the Sun on Sunday can achieve this every week whilst maintaining its bumper Saturday sale remains to be seen. Personally the read could do with a little more juice to keep readers interest.