A Welsh daily newspaper is experimenting with a new strategy of adopting different print times depending on the day of the week.

The trend towards overnight printing for what have historically been “evening” papers hasn continued apace in recent months with the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, Northampton Chronicle and Echo and Northants Telegraph all making the switch.

But in what is believed to be the first move of its kind, the North Wales-based Evening Leader is now being printed overnight on Fridays only while remaining an evening title for the remainder of the week.

The title, which publishes four daily geographical editions in North Wales and Chester, printed its first morning edition last Friday.

The edition has been redesigned significantly, tailored for a weekend audience with a new 20 page local guide to the weekend. It is also being home delivered in the early morning on Fridays by North Wales News Media’s own direct delivery team.

Editor Barrie Jones says reader response to the new strategy has already been positive.

“With all the changes in reader choices and expectation we thought this was a great way of presenting our daily title in a more modern way,” he said.

“We are facing the same challenges as most other local evening titles and will look at breaking the traditional publishing model whenever there is advantage in doing so.”

“We have put together a Friday package that we feel will be of real interest to a local audience for the weekend and made the decision to make it available as early as we could on a Friday.

“We have also tried to maintain news and sport deadlines as late as possible so that the weekend edition is as up to date as possible. So far the reaction has been very positive.”

Comments

Lord Lucan (13/01/2009 08:12:09)
This is not a new idea. It’s was done on dailies in Gloucestershire and Hampshire years ago.

Old News (13/01/2009 23:47:21)
Hardly new this. And as for “local”, does the Friday Chester edition still have a light dusting of Chester wrapped around a big bag of Welsh stuff?

barry (14/01/2009 16:23:25)
South Wales Argus did this years ago – hardly new idea!!!