A new weekly newspaper has been launched by a regional publisher after a sister title was closed last week.
Archant-owned daily the Norwich Evening News has announced the launch of Norwich Extra, which replaces the Norwich Advertiser.
The free Advertiser’s last edition ran last Thursday, and Extra was brought out for the first time today.
Norwich Extra, pictured below, has been launched with the tagline ‘the paper that adds value’ and will focus on shopping, lifestyle, eating out, entertainment, gardening, food and drink, cinema and fashion.
Extra is being aimed at “active and affluent family households”, and will feature regular editorial on key community figures.
The sports section will feature a guide to the local sporting weekend ahead and supporter analysis of that week’s developments at Norwich City FC.
In the business section, there will be a double-page-spread dedicated to profiling a Norwich business.
An initial 60,000 copies have been distributed to homes across Norwich, more than was the case with the Advertiser, and is also available from businesses in and around Norwich city centre.
Evening News editor David Powles said: “Launching the Norwich Extra has allowed us to take a fresh look at the content readers would like to see in their weekly newspaper, bring in new commercial partners and improve the distribution model.
“Some 60,000 copies will go to homes and businesses in and around the city centre, reaching 90,000 people. It will also appear in health and fitness centres, coffee shops, cafes and hotels and be handed out at various locations.
“Closely aligned to the Norwich Evening News, editorially it will complement people’s weekend, whether they live in the city or are just visitors.
“It will have a consumer-emphasis and include content on subjects such as shopping, lifestyle, eating out, entertainment, gardening, food and drink, cinema and fashion.
“It’s tagline will be ‘the paper that adds value’ and every week it will include a page of money-off vouchers, as well as competitions.”
Launch advertisers include regional-based businesses Norwich Airport, Better Furniture and John Doe.
Matt Kelly, Archant’s chief content officer, said: “This is a quality newspaper for a quality city. It has a fresh look, reflects the vibrant community of Norwich and will enhance the weekend for shoppers and advertisers alike.”
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Not a bad initiative at all and I wish it luck but that “adding value” strap line is terrible. Who speaks like that outside of a management meeting? Either it’s a terrible committee decision or somebody has lost touch. That said, the rest sounds promising and I look forward to reading it.
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It’s new so let’s wish it all the best. Matt Kelly sounds better announcing this sort of venture than when he’s firing photographers.
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I see they kept the closure of the ad grabber Norwich Advetiser a bit quiet didn’t they?
This one day a week merger ( that’s what it is) with the Advertiser will be the first step along the road to turning the awful evening news info a five day a week free so nice work Matt Kelly, it’s been a busy old week for you with the closure of london24 and putting 30 photographic jobs at risk and it’s still only Thursday
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Its not new @gus flair,dont be taken in by the spin,its the first step along the route to turning the Evening News into a five day a week free paper,there`s nothing new about it,i think the phrase is” rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”
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If only there was a way for people to get information on shopping, lifestyle, eating out, entertainment, gardening, food and drink, cinema and fashion 24hrs a day. Until the internet arrives in Norwich I guess we’ll have to make do.
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Thanks, JH. I have no local knowledge and stand corrected. So, Matt Kelly isn’t being as naively effusive as it looks then…
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Wonder if the evening will become a five-day a week “free’ paper. The Scarborough Evening News was turned into a weekly – and then JP cut the staff even further.
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They did keep the closure of the Norwich advertiser a bit quiet “geoffrey@, I wonder why?
Loads of staff and its own as manager crammed full of bundled up low value adverts
So that poses the question about the future of the other Norfolk and Suffolk advertisers in the group as my understanding is they are no better or worse than the Norwich one so must themselves be at risk?
All have high costs associated with them and in some cases they are in the same town which makes no sense at all unless they are both highly profitable
A view Matt Kelly?
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Two simple questions;
why was the Norwich advertiser closed ?
And who was the editor at it’s time of closure?
Two simple questions , two simple answers please
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Den, in answer to your questions:
i) It hasn’t really been closed, just rebranded.
ii) It never had an editor. It was thrown together in about 30 minutes each week using recycled content in much the same way as the Extra will be.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks @NFnG
It partly answer my points too.
I wondered if the outgoing editor ( it doesbt sound like there was one then ) washed his hands of it and passed the chalice onto another poor soul to inherit and be there at its closure soon as he heard it was being scrapped or ‘ rebranded’ rather then go down with the ship.
No wonder they kept it quiet then,if this is a merger between two ailing city papers, one paid for and one free, this must be the start of the dreary evening news going free and a blueprint for the towns where there’s already a paid for and free title which to be fair does make sense to scrap one or the other.
In this day and age and with newspaper readerships in free fall no publisher can sustain TWO papers in one town surely?,with all the staff and costs doubling up,presumably the out of city papers have their own offices or is the editorial and advert staff centralised from head office ?
Bit worrying if you find the title you work on suddenly tarted up as it would appear it’s being polished up ready for drastic changes.
Interesting
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Don’t be under the impression that the Norwich Advertiser was a standalone paper with its own dedicated staff. It wasn’t.
It’s content was cobbled together, largely from copy that had already appeared in the existing publications ie Evening News/ EDP.
The “new” Norwich Extra is just the old Advertiser with a bit of cosmetic surgery. A few tweaks here and there but essentially it’s just window dressing with some ballyhoo.
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“In the business section, there will be a double-page-spread dedicated to profiling a Norwich business”. We tried that at work once. It was a splendid success until the ad dept discovered that there was no chance of them selling ads to the company being profiled because it was getting free publicity. So they complained, loudly, and eventually profiles such as that, and anything else that provided free publicity, were banned. Of course, none of the companies targeted cared – they wouldn’t have bought any advertising anyway – but it wrecked the business supplement!
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as usual, the armchair warriors of the comments thread of HTFP have scrutinised this latest tomfoolery and concluded that whatever anyone tries to do is utterly brainless and pointless and nothing more than confirmation that all the geniuses of our business were the ones who happened to be around when there was no internet to worry about and papers were a licence to print money.
Some genius… get back to your elasticated trousers and summer cruises and whatever else your spending your final salary pensions on.
PS: where is my half-brother, Dick Minim? Hope he hash´t finally succumbed to the dementia he has so clearly been demonstrating these past months.
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That’s a classic reaction from sales people, @gladimoutofit who don’t realise the importance of credible quality content to have appeal to readers, Instead they pander to those who buy adverts based on them ” getting some editorial”
it’s no wonder sales are so bad when you see how poor majority of the managers are,bring in some commercial people with hands on experience and track records of running successful businesses and teams and i am convinced things would improve.
But Archant lifer is correct this is just sprinkling glitter and tarting up the weary old Norwich advertiser, however I would still like to hear the official reason given for its ‘closure’
Until then and as someone said previously it’s just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic
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Mick Dinim: watch out, sir, it half runs in the family.
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Anyone noticed the absence of anything resembling news in this new launch? I foresee this will be the way for a lot of titles, especially in locations where companies have more than one paper.
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Hang on Mick Dinim – I LIKE my elasticated trousers. Though I much prefer a couple of weeks in the deckchair at dear old Skeggie than one of those new-fangled foreign cruise jobbies.
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Is the real story here that Archant have ‘launched’ a ‘new’ free weekly?
or that they’ve closed an existing one?
Openings are always better recieved than closures so it’s no wonder Kelly and Powles would have you believe this is all about launching a new free paper but the big question is why close the existing free?
And as has been mentioned earlier, is this the beginning of the end of both the evening news and the company’s other ad grabber free county weeklies?
Time for questions to be answered
‘Watch this space matey’
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Norfolk N good.” thrown together in about 30 mins”. sounds like the wafer-thin dreary JP and NQ freebies.
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Is there a single new idea here? Free, special offers, double-page spread profiles of local businesses, user-generated sports content – isn’t this the same thing everyone’s been rushing to churn out for the last 10 years? Why do they think this is going to be any better at reversing their fortunes than countless other similar projects have been?
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Let’s be honest here change is coming to this area soon.
It’s one of the last areas still running its own fleet of on site drivers at huge cost.
It’s one of the few publishers not under the Media Force distribution plan to take over the world. At the point that changes then please trust me that all the other changes and cuts will follow as they have with several other publishers.
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This isn’t a launch of a new paper at all as many have pointed out, it’s a smoke screen to either divert attention away from the closure of an existing free paper or the bridge between the norwich evening news going wholly free.
A bit of honesty would be appreciated rather than the bull about it being ” a quality newspaper for a quality city.” and being allegedly what the readers have asked for,
If it really IS a new launch please tell us why the Norwich advertiser was closed?
Matt Kelly was quick to respond a couple of weeks back yet is strangely silent about the comments around this latest announcement,that probably tells us all we need to know
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@yesjeff
Either that or he’s ‘down with the ad reps’ playing kick abouts and penalty shoot outs against the EDP editor in the sales room,incredibly we’ve Watched it in disbelief but at least we now know what a ‘chief content editor ‘ does,we did wonder
It’s all about what’s important and getting your priorities right at archant
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