A regional daily has retained a floral emblem on its masthead following a survey of readers.
The Yorkshire Evening Post relaunches today and features the county’s white rose as part of the new look, after a “forceful” reader push for it to stay.
The rose had first appeared on the masthead of the Leeds-based title in 1990 to coincide with its 100th birthday.
Hundreds of readers took to social media imploring the YEP to keep the emblem after the idea of axing it as part of the relaunch was floated.
In a message to readers, YEP editor Jeremy Clifford said: “We have listened hard to what our readers have said about the importance of the rose to the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“As part of the major revamp of the YEP we have looked at every part of the paper, deciding what to keep, what to stop and what to change, and the rose was part of that discussion.
“But you have told us forcefully what you think and left us in no doubt that the rose should remain part of our titlepiece and part of our identity.”
The YEP will take part in a phone-in on Monday and a web chat on Wednesday to talk to readers and get their thoughts about the relaunch.
Other aspects of the relaunched title include a new page aimed at families across the city – with the paper appealing for readers to share their favourite recipes, best-loved children’s books and top tips for family outings.
A new weekly supplement called Thank God It’s Friday, dedicated to entertainment and nightlife, will also feature.
As previously reported on HTFP, the Post’s revamp coincides with the launch of its Your Right To Know campaign, which aims to turn the spotlight on the way taxpayers’ cash is spent and how public services are delivered in Leeds.
It is also recruiting a team of volunteer correspondents to compile weekly columns about their local area.
The YEP’s pre-relaunch masthead
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It was less than two weeks ago that the YEP editors were asking about the retention (or not) of the white rose:. If that’s the amount of time they put into their corporate identity, it doesn’t bode well for the new look. Was it a genuine question? Would they have really redesigned every house ad template with a new masthead etc.? Maybe they hadn’t thought of that. As it was only two years since the last expensive (Spanish) version they can have another look at it before too long.
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Glad to see the rose is staying. I wonder, though, why they didn’t drop the Evening from the title considering that the one-edition-a-day paper is printed in the early hours of the morning!
Trades Description Act?
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Who on earth squeezed that splash head?
And how does the splash sit with today’s i splash that the North-South divide is getting bigger?
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Outofit. They can’t remove ‘Evening’ because then it would be the, er, Yorkshire Post . . .
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At least they’ve left the price alone.
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We all like to scoff and find fault but let’s not forget the colleagues to whom we entrusted the YEP when our days were done. They’ve seen wave after wave of redundancies and it’s now a difficult place to work with many fewer staff than we had.
I’m pleased that there’s some investment in the product but a snazzy design is just window dressing. People will only buy a newspaper for news, and preferably news which they can’t get elsewhere.
So more reporters please, keep all the photographers and see if that can slow the decline in sales.
In the meantime, maybe Ashley can sort out the JP websites which ALL have a dreadful problem with the search facility, making them as good as useless if you are looking for anything moved to archive.
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Heading is overloaded. too much info. Should tempt not tell, like good bills.
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Interesting P1 ad – cannabis growing equipment. Just the job for a paper championing its city. But then it is a growing industry in more ways than one. Or is the unspoken message that you have to be on something to buy the YEP in any form?
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In nicely relaxed harmony with the splash headline though.
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I agree that the one good thing is that there has been no price rise, other than that I’m not impressed by the new front. I haven’t shelled out to see the full paper, but one friend that did had to be reminded that it is a new design. In my opinion the old rose was the ‘YEP rose’, but this new one is simply the white ‘tudor’ rose that can be seen on anything ‘Yorkshire’ and this particular one resembles a cauliflower. It seems to simply split the two words, rather than join them, as the previous one did. Regarding the name: Outofit has a point. It is no longer an evening paper, it is marketing itself much more as a Leeds paper – championing Leeds, if you love Leeds you’ll love your new look YEP etc. So, if you live in Wakefield and district, Ilkley or Harrogate, this paper is no longer for you. This is change for the sake of it. If the management wanted to really make an impact by redesign perhaps they should have said it like it is; this is the NEWspaper for Leeds: The Leeds Post or Leeds News (as used on the twitter account). Naturally editors will tell us that they have had great feedback. Personally, I don’t see how asking readers to send in their snow pics, or worse, selfies, is the making of a better product.
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JP Cost Cut Victim, how on earth is it change for the sake of it. The circulation was tanking (as evidenced by info available on the publicly accessible http://www.abc.org.uk site). What would your strategy have been, to ignore this fact and keep producing a newspaper oblivious to the reality of life. Or, would you have changed it to the Leeds Post or Leeds News even though that wasn’t what the readership wanted. There really is no irony in your HTFP handle.
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Bob – How do you know what the readership wanted? They were asked, I know, if they wanted to KEEP the white rose in the masthead? As a reader, I’d have (mistakenly) thought they were referring to the original rose. Have we been told how much, if any, market research was carried out? (I don’t just mean on twitter). When I say it is change for the sake of it, I mean that this comes only two years after a costly redesign, yet more money has been spent on this and the main change I see is the pushing of it as a solely Leeds paper than ever before. I was simply suggesting that a redesign should have more impact; be more different to make a difference. If not, the investment should have gone into retaining the staff that could retain readers and advertisers: good journalists, photographers etc.
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Perhaps they think readers need a good bifter to enjoy the YEP…
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