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Trinity Mirror Sunday Mirror Sun on Sunday

The Sun's launch on Sunday likely to impact on Trinity Mirror's circulation figures admits publisher's former marketing chief

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By Stephen Lepitak, -

February 20, 2012 | 3 min read

The Sun's launch on Sunday will impact on Trinity Mirror’s Sunday circulation figures, admits the publisher’s former chief marketer.

Lorraine Fraser, managing director of Incentive Media and former group marketing director for UK Nationals at Trinity Mirror Group, has said that she expects Trinity Mirror’s titles, likely to be the main rivals for News International’s Sunday launch of the Sun, and are likely to lose circulation as a result of the Sun 's appearance next Sunday.

Trinity Mirror publishes both The Sunday Mirror and The People, which benefitted from the closure of the News of the World last June. However Fraser said that she felt that readers would definitely leave the titles for The Sun's edition on Sunday.

“They [Trinity Mirror] would like to hope that they will keep the readers, but we will definitely see some readers move within the marketplace and even if it’s as simple as not having as many dual purchases or a cheaper title for their own weekly read. It is bound to have an impact on their sales figures, it would be naive to think otherwise,” said Fraser.

She also added that it was likely that rival would have been caught “off guard” by today’s announcement, despite rumours circulating for months, and Murdoch’s confirmation on Friday that the title would launch “very soon”.

However, Fraser also stated that rival publishers will also have strategies in place for such an eventuality, but were unlikely to be able to implement them by this weekend.

“There will be a lot of noise of the front page to try and muddy the waters, but it’s going to take a little bit longer for them to activate any plans they have in place,” she explained.

“The next step will definitely see conversations held by rivals as to what they can afford to do, including vouchering from Saturday through to Sunday, cover price discounts – maybe strategically in regions, and also looking at what the other opportunities are, such as offering value for money. They will also consider whether they continue with the sales promotional route of conditional spend or supermarket basket buys. They will all try and come out with something.”

The launch edition of the title itself is also expected to be popular, Fraser claimed; “Certainly there are a lot of people out there who will be wanting to know what they are going to say, how it’s going to look, how it’s going to sit on the newsstand as well. "

The most recent ABC newspaper circulation figures for January saw The Sunday Mirror reach 1,753,202 average weekly sales, while The People had 770,772 sales a week.

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