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Weekly ‘behind game’ on website branding says rival

A weekly newspaper which has rebranded itself in line with its website name is five years behind the game, says a rival publisher.

As reported on HTFP on Friday, the Surrey Mirror has moved to a single-edition structure under the SurreyMirror.co.uk banner.

The move is part of a wider move by publisher Local World to integrate its newspaper and online platforms.

However the Newsquest-owned Guardian series, which circulates in neighbouring areas to the Mirror, has pointed out that it did the same thing in 2008.

Group editor Andrew Parkes said:  “They do say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but with being such a close neighbour, and given we first did this five years ago in June 2008,  the Surrey Mirror is a wee bit behind the game.

“Good luck to them now they’ve picked up on it, though I’ll be interested to see how they tackle reporting 24-hours a day.”

Newsquest added the .co.uk to its mastheads across its South London-based Guardian series of titles covering Croydon, Epsom, Sutton, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Kingston and Elmbridge.

The group claims an average monthly unique user figure of 535,883 for the series of websites.  They have a combined print circulation of 260,853.

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  • September 16, 2013 at 12:45 pm
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    It’s a sad day when any newspaper is prepared to surrender an essential part of its character to facilitate a current fad.

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  • September 16, 2013 at 2:05 pm
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    And to think the Croydon Guardian surrendered its character 5 years ago… as the editor was very keen to point out.

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