A “clumsy” plan by a regional publisher to remove the names of two of its flagship daily titles from the exterior of its head office has been slammed by a heritage group.
The Norwich Society says it is “completely opposed” to proposals by Archant to strip existing signs bearing the names of the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News from the front of its Prospect House building in the city.
As previously reported on HTFP, Archant has applied to Norwich City Council, Archant would replace the signage with its own corporate branding.
The company says it plans to introduce new branding for the EDP and Evening News at other locations in the building,
The current signage at Prospect House (above) and an artist’s impression of the proposed change (below)
A statement submitted to planning officers by The Norwich Society, of which Archant is a corporate member, reads: “We are completely opposed to this clumsy attempt to update the image of Prospect House and to rebrand a familiar local, regional and national business.
“There is a strong and continuing association between the Eastern Daily Press and the Eastern Evening News with the building.
“We appreciate that the Archant business is much larger than these two titles.
“However we do not feel it necessary to connect the EDP and EEN with the Archant brand in the general public’s eyes, particularly since the proposals outlined in the application would certainly damage the existing visual quality of Prospect House.”
Under Archant’s proposal the current gold signage bearing the two titles’ logos, which were put in place 20 years ago and match a large bronze statue commissioned for the building’s opening in 1968, would be replaced by red lettering bearing the company’s name.
As previously reported, the application has already drawn criticism from an anonymous objector who describes themselves as an Archant employee.
In its letter the Society also praised the existing signage for being “sympathetic” to a bronze sculpture by famed artist Bernard Meadows at the front of the building.
It added: “The proposals replace these well known features with illuminated, over large, clumsy red branding signs which are thoroughly inappropriate and damaging.”
An Archant spokesman said: “We are very proud of our media brands and already display EDP and Evening News signage prominently at our main entrance and will continue to do this, as well as adding other local Archant brands such as Mustard TV and some of our Norfolk weekly titles.
“In addition, we will be incorporating new branding for the EDP and Norwich Evening News at other sites on the building.
“At the same time, we are keen to make more local people aware that Prospect House is also the head office of Archant, one of the country’s largest regional media companies.
“This is not an issue of either one or the other but striking a balance between our pride in the local titles and that of our corporate identity.
“We are respectful of views expressed during the planning process and will be talking to Norwich city planners about them.”
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Love the artist’s impression! Classic.
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I do have to wonder sometimes where these decision-making execs come from. The solution is simple and can be seen clearly in the two pics accompanying this HTFP piece – keep the “old” signage and add the new, as per the artists’s impression.
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I wonder if the Heritage Society could also take a look at the damage Mustard TV is doing to the infrastructure of journalism in the city…?
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Can’t really see what heritage is at stake here. It is a fairly ghastly looking modern building (nothing historic) and newspapers change their logo every few years to freshen up their image – so dropping it altogether is hardly the worst thing which could affect the “fine city” of Norwich. All a bit of a contrived storm in a teacup!
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If you were in the business of selling gravy, what signage would you display if you were lucky enough to own a prime city centre site – “Bisto” or “Premier Foods”? Pillocks.
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Let’s be honest it’s not about adding Archant, it’s all about removing The EDP/NEN branding as they’re trying to distance themselves from these two embarrassing yet once decent papers.
Dreadful sales figures,thousands of lost readers every time ABC reports are published,weak content, quality journalists and commercial people long gone it’s no wonder they are embarrassed to have these papers names big and bold for all to see
Archant means nothing to the people it thinks it serves but then again nowadays neither does the EDP or the God awful Norwich news.
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Time was when Archant shouted about their so called flag ship titles but with copy sales at all time lows, the evening paper a laughing stock and the over priced and self promoting EDP an embarrassing and pale imitation of what it once was just a few years ago it’s not surprising Archant want to brush these brands under the carpet by removing all trace of them from the front of the building.
A laughable and ‘clumsy’ smokescreen thats fooling no one.
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Er, how about having both logos on the building?
Other centres have both. Rocket science anyone?
Or is NFN?
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1 It would be madness to to remove such free prominent display of two active brands
2 Archant are determined to remove this branding
3 The Evening News is below the threshold other newspapers have switched to “reduced frequency”
I suggest this allows the Evening News branding to be removed quietly in preparation for an announcement in May about a September relaunch.
Anyone else agree?
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The only sensible and cost effective options for the evening news is to either scrap it completely,make it a free or merge it with the rapidly dwindling Norwich advertiser and thus turn it into another free weekly.
It’s lost its audience, is a dire version of what it was and is seen as a rehash of the previous day’s news with no value and a record low number of readers.
The costs incurred in keeping this embarrassing paper going must heavily outweigh propping it Up, it’s incrdible its been allowed to bump along the bottom this long
It’s all about cost savings and profit here so the sooner they pull the plug on it the better.
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The Evening News currently exists only for its print contract at Thorpe. If it was printed elsewhere it would have gone years ago.
As soon as the loss of running it is more than the loss of income for the Thorpe print centre, then it’s gone..
Normally printing is a major cost when assessing a title’s P+L – but in this case it has to be discounted because Archant are saddled with with the least accessible print centre in the UK and need all the activity it can get.
It’s only had dual carriageway access to the rest of the country for six weeks…
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