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‘We’re not dead yet’ says editor after print relaunch

The editor of a regional daily has declared “we are not dead yet” after a top to bottom redesign of its print edition.

The Hull Daily Mail saw an 8.1pc year-on-year circulation decline in the second half of 2014 according to last month’s ABC figures with editor Neil Hodgkinson admitting the paper “needed refreshing.”

Now it has undergone a spring clean with a new masthead, headline font and daily and weekend supplements.

The new design, which hit the streets for the first time on Thursday, was conceived by Neil along with design editor Ian Bond, whom hel described as an “immense talent.”

Thursday's relaunched Hull Daily Mail

Thursday’s relaunched Hull Daily Mail

Said Neil:  “We have felt for some time that the paper was looking tired and needed refreshing. Recent research said the readers thought we were truthful, well-known, local, unbiased and still relevant.

“This being no-nonsense Hull, they also told us we needed to listen more, be even more of a ‘voice of the people’, and that the paper ‘looked a bit tired’.

“That was the catalyst for the change and Thursday saw the launch of a new design that hopefully looks more modern and fresh. Something a little more befitting of a UK City of Culture.

“We treat content as king and print and digital with equal importance. Both audiences are fighting a good fight and together we now have a bigger audience than we did 10 years ago. We are not dead yet.”

The redesign, which includes the launch of a new daily TV and entertainment guide called The View,  was promoted on radio and billboards on the side of buses.

In a message to readers, pledging to continue campaigning on their behalf, Neil added: “We are one way of keeping people honest. It certainly keeps us honest.

“We are not perfect and will make mistakes (hopefully not too many!).

“However, we will always try to do our best. We love doing what we do for our readers and – with your continuing support – we will keep doing it for many years to come.”

Wednesday's edition of the Hull Day Mail, the last before the relaunch

Wednesday’s edition of the Hull Day Mail, the last before the relaunch

19 comments

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  • March 9, 2015 at 8:32 am
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    Good to see an editor reacting to sales decline the right way. Good luck and I hope it works. perhaps others could take a leaf from Hull’s book.
    Makes a refeshing change to JP’s ethnic cleansing approach.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:11 am
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    An even better idea, which targets a large and growing portion of Hull would be to produce a paper with a few pages translating the news into Polish. Newspapers are sometimes a little bigoted when it comes to understanding their demographic.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:28 am
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    No matter how good it looks, without decent and well-written content it’ll fail.

    That’s just the way it is.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:34 am
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    Sorry, just don’t like the masthead. It looks kiddy and bland.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:39 am
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    Brilliant city, sound newspaper and great editor. Having introduced the first Polska Page in the UK press about 10 years ago I’d be happy to share some pointers if Neil wants to follow up on the suggestion above!

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:45 am
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    I’m afraid a makeover won’t stop the rot. If only it were that easy!
    Still, it won’t do any harm…

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  • March 9, 2015 at 9:46 am
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    I wonder if the digi-freaks at Trinitymirror have read this. Good luck HDM.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 10:05 am
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    Digi-freaks at Trinity Mirror? If I’m not mistaken, all regionals were re-designed too over the last 18 months…

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  • March 9, 2015 at 10:27 am
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    Well done, Neil. The new look is great, and as usual what you have to say is good sense.
    Best of luck with the relaunch. You and everybody else at the HDM deserve every success.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 10:44 am
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    Refreshing to see some effort put into the printed edition, which is still pulls in most revenue despite what the digi-disciples preach.
    One of the reasons newspaper sales have fallen is the disgraceful neglect of the core product by management during the digi revolution.
    Long live print.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 10:58 am
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    Well done all. Looks good. Give me a real newspaper any day.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 12:03 pm
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    That wouldn’t be a redesign done by journalists, rather than the combined might of a whizz with a virtual paintbox and a marketing dept which thinks newspapers are like any other old product, would it? It looks stylish, in keeping with its market and has regard for fonts and layout, so I suspect it might well be.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 12:10 pm
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    Neil is one of my favourite ex-editors, enthusiastic about the job and a lovely man as well. It was thanks to him and his successor, Paul Napier, that my charity Bullying UK was so successful. I could never have done what I did with it without their support, and that of my fellow YEP subs, reporters and snappers. Good luck Neil, anything to boost print has to be a good idea.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 12:52 pm
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    Good to see some investment being made in a print product. I’m not convinced though that new supplements and sections drive sales. My local paper, the West Briton, last week had a new look What’s On, a 12 page Poldark pull out, and the usual bumper Property and Motors section but I doubt the sales trend will have changed. I think regional papers should stop thinking quantity and focus on quality. Less is more as they say. Their websites are the place for quantity not the printed papers.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 2:23 pm
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    Run out of ideas? Let’s have a re-design! JP did it and look at their papers now. But good luck Hull.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 2:47 pm
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    Design, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.
    I am sure Neil will have tried and tested a few different looks on readership sample groups to see what they went for.
    Bottom line is, he’s a respected editor and know that it’s not just about good stories but also how you project and sell them.
    Good to see a paper investing in the print product and trying to keep it alive a bit longer, as well as driving the new-era online stuff.
    I just hope he has the right team bringing in the f***-me stories.

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  • March 9, 2015 at 6:08 pm
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    We’re bound to get the usual like it/don’t like it debate but there’s one specific problem with any redesign.

    Your readers, which have been consistently declining over the last few years, are clearly making the decision not to buy the paper anymore. This is all down to convenience and changing habits. It is rarely to do with the quality of content and never due to the design.

    What a redesign therefore does is challenge your existing, loyal readers to make the same decision about whether they still like it or not.

    Change the font size or leading? Move the BMDs to the front half? Push the puzzles page back further? Swap the columnist on Page 14? All these changes force your existing readership to break their current habits and, as a result, will often result in a more drastic fall in readership.

    If the aim of the redesign is to attract a new audience with different content, then you risk alienating your loyal readers all together.

    Bear with me, but this is where I believe where newspapers – and the Local World approach to digital in general – could learn from the more modern approach to web design.

    The days of a new website launch every three years or so are dead. Most well-known brands now evolve their website continually, implementing simple changes, monitoring their effectiveness, tweaking them then rolling out or removing them as required.

    If this continual process of A/B testing was applied to newspapers, changes would become continuous improvements without the potential to drop a massive bomb on the readership.

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  • March 10, 2015 at 9:39 pm
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    No, no, no! The masthead was wrong before and still is. The core name of the paper is “Daily Mail” – the Hull one of course, but it’s still “Daily Mail”. Therefore these two crucial words should not be split over two lines, any more than you would write someone’s byline over two lines. Either write it as a single line masthead “Hull Daily Mail” or superimpose “Hull” above. As for the new font: I agree with another commenter, it looks childish and lacks gravitas, Also the integrity of the masthead is compromised by the rather tacky promo stuff sitting around it. A case of trying too hard, methinks?

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