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Weeklies to close as part of sister daily’s relaunch

Three free weekly newspapers are to close and be replaced by new district editions of a neighbouring sister daily.

Regional publisher Local World has announced that the Cambridge News is to relaunch this autumn with a new design, new sections and three extra editions.

The new editions will cover the towns of Royston and Saffron Walden and the Huntingdon/St Ives/St Neots area.

It will mean the closure of the group’s existing free titles covering those patches, namely the Royston Weekly News, Saffron Walden Weekly News and Huntingdon/St Ives & St Neots News & Crier.

A dummy of the new-look Cambridge News set to hit the streets in the autumn

The new-look Cambridge News, pictured in dummy form above, will include new sections covering sport, business, entertainment and lifestyle.

The relaunch follows the arrival of Richard Duxbury as managing director earlier this year in place of Mike Richardson, who subsequently left the company.

Said Richard: “The new paid-for daily editions are great news for the local area. The Cambridge News is great product that is about to get even better.

“Extensive research has gone into the new title’s design and content and it will mirror what’s important to the people who live in the communities we serve.”

Cambridge News editor Paul Brackley added: “We are looking forward to bringing our readers a bigger, brighter and better Cambridge News, featuring a fresh design and more content.

“Daily editions of the title will enable us to reflect what is happening in our local communities, while the new sections will provide a focus for key areas of people’s lives in the region.

“These are exciting improvements that will reaffirm the newspaper’s position as the voice of the community.”

Of the three weeklies due to close, the Saffron Walden Weekly News had a free distribution of 19,654 and the Royston Weekly News 13,164 in the August 2013 ABC figures, while the News and Crier series had an overall distribution of 45,000.

All three titles were withdrawn from the ABC for the most recent figures published in February 2014.

21 comments

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  • August 6, 2014 at 4:01 pm
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    Uh-oh.

    There’s that phrase again: “exciting changes…”

    In the UK regional newspaper publishing trade, it’s more often than not the harbinger of disaster.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 4:16 pm
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    That masthead looks awful and looks like Waitrose Weekend.
    The size of the Cambridge means it outperforms the splash head. The design of the puff panels further negates the puff panels.

    And the decision to axe the local papers for slip pages in the Cambridge one? Woolly thinking.
    It’s like trying to persuade someone who lives in Barnet that they’ll be interested in news from Bromley – they’re both London, but on opposite sides of the river.

    Just because St Ives and Royston are close to Cambridge doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll give a stuff about what’s happening in the Colleges.

    The Hunts Post is the only winner here.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 4:50 pm
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    Ah…that wonder phrase…..”exciting improvements.” Wonder how many jobs will be lost this time!

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  • August 6, 2014 at 5:40 pm
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    Extensive research? Really? I’m with fishyphil, it’s a dead ringer for Waitrose Weekend.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 5:58 pm
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    Opps, need my own sub!
    When I said ‘The design of the puff panels further negates the puff panels’ I meant

    The design of the puff panels further negates the impact and power of the splash.

    I blame the phone ringing.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 8:01 pm
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    Is that a price increase I see before me? The new Waitrose look costs 5p more than the current model.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 10:29 pm
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    UGC is UGC, no matter how it’s tarted up. We aren’t as stupid as we all look Loco World.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 11:03 pm
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    Still trying to get my head round this. Towns which have previously shown naff all appetite for an edition of the CEN, even when there was a staffed office, will now be expected to buy into a daily offer when they will still be getting a free local courtesy of Archant in most cases?

    There might be some sense in it if the doomed portfolio was all within Cambridgeshire and there was a chance of some decent common coverage, but that’s not the case for most of them.

    If this spells exciting times for Cambridge, Dunkirk spelled exciting times for British forces – embarrassing defeat followed by years of struggle, however you try to spin it.

    Keenly await Local World’s exciting new ideas for other marginal markets nearby – Luton, Milton Keynes, and the like.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 8:38 am
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    Enough of that b******t that is repeated over and over again. Stop treating your readers and advertisers like idiots. They are not.
    What a load of nonsense: “bigger, better, brighter newspaper”, ““It will help us to reflect what is happening in our local communities”, “It will provide a focus for key areas of people’s lives”.
    HELLO, this is what local newspapers are all about.
    You can redesign all you want, make it as bright as you like or as big as the phone book, people will only buy your newspaper if the content is relevant to them. AND to get the right content you need to employ the right calibre of staff.
    There you go, we have just reinvented the wheel!

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  • August 7, 2014 at 10:18 am
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    Have to agree about the awful look of the design. You might think they had pulled in someone off the street to do it, but someone off the street would probably have made a better job of it.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 10:27 am
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    Every morning when I look at Hold the Front Page, I fully expect to read the latest sad instalment of how Local World are knocking another nail into the coffin of once quality regional newspapers. Today ran true to form. All I can say is that I feel really sorry for the many good people working there. I hope they find a route out of there soon.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 11:16 am
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    This is cloud cuckoo land. Few people in areas to have their weeklies axed bought the News anyway, and won’t change that habit now. They can find everything they want on line or – as someone else pointed out – feed off the rival Archant products. If the new Cambridge MD thinks this is the way forward he hasn’t got long for that job. It’s just another huge nail in the coffin of Cambridge Newspapers and presumably an exercise and excuse to shed yet more jobs. The management team’s spin on the changes (in report) is just about the worse I have ever seen, you can almost feel they don’t believe it themselves. It’s just empty, meaningless words – but they won’t fool the people.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 2:44 pm
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    Might be a good time for Archant, which has weeklies in all the areas mentioned, to add the Cambridge News to its portfolio. This was often mooted in the past but would have been messy and expensive, having to close one of two newspapers in several towns. This way Archant gets another daily newspaper with several good weeklies, like the Hunts. Post, feeding in stories, thereby strengthening its dominance in East Anglia. It’s no secret that the suits in Norwich have looked enviously at Cambridge for many a year.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 3:56 pm
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    There should be a moratorium on the phrase “fresh design” or “fresh new design”. It seems to be deployed whenever there is a new paper or website launched. The word fresh, is ironically, going stale.

    Surely an industry based around journalism can find some new ways to describe a newly launched product?

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  • August 7, 2014 at 4:35 pm
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    Ahhh, “greater opportunity to contribute content”. More UGC drivel then.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 5:01 pm
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    It’s a shame we worked so hard to make those titles work, sad days

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  • August 7, 2014 at 6:16 pm
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    Another nail in the coffin for regional newspapers under the local world awful leadership. From what I hear from former co-workers, mass redundancies (expect more soon), people leaving and LW using cheap overseas outsourcing for production that produce VERY POOR adverts.

    Someone get the Undertaker for the newspaper

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  • August 7, 2014 at 11:42 pm
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    Dave, re a new term for ‘fresh’. Can I suggest “on the cheap”.

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  • August 8, 2014 at 9:40 am
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    I have to agree with Old Archantonian. Once the LW asset strippers have picked over the carcass, the once excellent Cambridge News title will be flogged off to Archant on the cheap. That way both sets of predators will be satisfied. Neither company gives a stuff about regional journalistic standards, their products, staff and, above all, their rapidly disappearing readership. It’s all about short-term gain before moving on to wreck something else.

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  • August 11, 2014 at 5:00 pm
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    In all my years in newspapers I’ve never come across anything so bonkers as this from Lost World.

    I have to agree with all the previous comments. . . .

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  • August 19, 2014 at 12:36 pm
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    Really interesting comments and noted that none are positive. What I would say is that Local World is addressing the declining appetite for local print media and I really hope they are successful. I’d add that negativity is so depressing and a UK disease. Standing still is not an option. That said, I’ll wait and see what the titles look like in the real before I get a shovel out.

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