The New Day price will increase after all, as Trinity Mirror backtracks again despite fall in circulation
Trinity Mirror has backtracked on its decision to fix the price of its recently launched national newspaper The New Day at 25p, instead following through with its initial decision to raise the price to 50p, despite sales falling to less than 90,000.
The initial plan was to raise the price of the paper from 25p to 50p two weeks after launch.
However, last week a source confirmed that The New Day was on track to continue to cost 25p to "avoid a further fall in circulation", it was speculated.
Today the media company has changed its mind once more, with a source stating Trinity Mirror will in fact raise the price of the paper to 50p.
This is in spite of the paper suffering a gradual decline in sales since its launch. Last week it was understood daily circulations figures were 110,000, falling from 150,000 copies on launch day (29 February). Now circulation figures have dropped to 90,000 copies a day, a source has confirmed.
"As we said when we launched, the pricing and marketing strategy are fairly fluid at the moment — while we are still in that launch period — so we aren't making long-term decisions. We don't therefore know how long we will have the trial price for — it might be a week, it might be a few weeks. The key thing is to keep the momentum going through this launch period, driving as much sampling as possible and encouraging frequency of purchase," a spokesperson explained last week.
In a letter announcing the price rise to retailers, Trinity Mirror offered a “top tip” for New Day, asking retailers to place copies in a “prominent area ... alongside the mid-market titles (Daily Mail, Daily Express)”, the Guardian reported.