A regional daily has relaunched with the promise of bringing its “lively digital personality” into print for readers.
The Chronicle, Newcastle, has shifted towards increasing its lifestyle offering and a “brighter, more positive tone” in the relaunch, with the first edition of its new look hitting the streets yesterday, pictured below.
The newspaper has introduced Chron Life, a new daily section of lifestyle content, including What’s On, nightlife, TV and puzzles.
The changes follow on from similar relaunches of The Chronicle’s Trinity Mirror sister dailies the Liverpool Echo and Birmingham Mail last year, and the Manchester Evening News last month.
Trinity Mirror says the refresh builds on the “phenomenal success” of its ChronicleLive online brand, the fourth biggest regional news site in the UK, by taking its “lively digital personality” into print.
The relaunched newspaper is being promoted on radio and in Newcastle city centre, while the paper’s sales team are also launching a new half-price home delivery offer. Its cover price remains at 65p.
Editor-in-chief Darren Thwaites said: “Newcastle has undergone a remarkable and triumphant transformation in recent decades and we’ve redesigned The Chronicle to reflect this.
“The new-look paper will tell readers all they need to know to get the best out of life in the North East, as well as fighting their corner, and celebrating the community’s achievements.
“Readers and advertisers can expect the refresh to bring the brand’s most popular content together in a modern, bright and entertaining format.”
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That’s a relaunch? I’ve always been a big fan of poster-style front pages, but that’s just a confusing mess. Maybe a relaunch of the relaunch needed!
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Why do editors hate readers? Everything about this smacks of pandering to people who would never pick up a newspaper in their life. This will not attract the “internet generation” and it will only serve to alienate those long-standing subscribers.
It certainly won’t be appealing to those who long ago gave up on their local rags as little more than mother and baby competitions and a round up of the latest local press releases.
Honestly, why don’t these so-called newspaper execs just sit back for five minutes and think: you know the internet and print are different creatures. We can’t and shouldn’t treat them as the same.
But that is exactly what they do. And it is only hastening the destruction of our industry… along with all their previous decisions.
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What is my eye meant to be drawn to on that front page? I like a busy front page but this seems a bit OTT.
A bit of old-fashioned black and white on there would be nice (and that isn’t a Toon Army reference!)
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Nice to have a positive story on here for a change, though it’ll not go down well with the regular commentators for that reason.
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A “New Day” look for the Ronnie Gill – oh dear!!
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Really positive reaction locally today to the relaunch-Newcastle is a vibrant, modern city, and the new look Chronicle (not just the front page) will reflect that. Sorry- I’m HTFP – boo!, it’s rubbish, when will they learn?. in my day we had 60 subs…….
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Helen – did you see the New Day today? It was a horror show of a front page.
Looks similar to Chron, templates / group brand ahoy!
( FP image https://scontent-bru2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtl1/t31.0-8/12983285_1326060284076940_3471328905430773481_o.jpg )
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The product, like the football team facing relegation!
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I like it. The Chron had looked dated for a very long time.
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Sorry. It just looks like a confusing mess to me.
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What complete and utter madness.
I just do not understand why shareholders put up with boards of directors handing control of printed newspapers to people who haven’t a clue how to run them. It’s entirely illogical to cast aside folks who’ve spent entire careers running newspapers in exchange for people who just haven’t a clue. The sad thing is that execs at top do not understand what it takes to produce good quality newspapers, they think their business school education is better placed to shape judgements over these issues than many many years of direct experience doing the job. They should concentrate on the web side of their businesses and let people who know what they’re doing run the newspapers. Otherwise the complete car crash that is the new Evening Chronicle will be the result.
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“The newspaper has introduced Chron Life, a new daily section of lifestyle content, including What’s On, nightlife, TV and puzzles.”
I’m getting on a bit and my memory is sketchy so humour me here. Didn’t just about every local evening paper have What’s Om, TV and puzzles 20 years ago?
This is seen as a selling point? I despair.
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Help! My brain hurts!!!
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Told you.
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It’s sad to see a once-respected newspaper reduced to this. It makes The Sunday Sun look intelligent.
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It’s blue! It’s so blue! And it’s all in italics! The boosts up the outside edge are in the wrong order and I’m pretty sure that hyphen before ‘it’s life’ should be an em dash.
The real giveaway though is ‘shifted towards increasing its lifestyle offering’ ie less news, because news costs more to produce. How much will be coming from PA features?
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Stories like this fill me with dread. Not because there is anything particularly wrong with re-designing your product. It is simply a irrelevant waste of time and a pointless distraction from much more serious problems.
Simpering inanities like: “Readers and advertisers can expect the refresh to bring the brand’s most popular content together in a modern, bright and entertaining format.” might impress the execs weekly Friday meeting, but you can bet the design won’t put 10,000 on the circulation. It won’t even dent the disastrous drain that is sapping the very life-blood from the industry.
In a career in the regional press spanning 40 years, I was involved in probably 15 re-designs, and not s single one of them stemmed the never-ending fall in circulation.
It is rather like putting a fresh-dressing on a gaping wound. Because you can’t see the blood seeping through the bandage any more, the assumption is that you are doing some good.
Rather than prop up an industry that is going nowhere but down, managements should be considering much more radical solutions to rescue the regional press.
As circulations continue to decline year by year, how long can print advertising keep Newspaper afloat?
Print must be put where it belongs in the dustbin of history. If newspaper managements do not take this radical action and soon, dwindling readerships will put it there anyway.
There will be many casualties of this radical surgery, but the fittest and the best will find a way to make the web pay, all be it a rate far below the profits of the past. The pain for everyone will be very, very great, but the alternative is the unthinkable that will become reality far quicker than the arrival of any meaningful increase in circulation from the Chon’s irrelevant redesign.
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We’re proud of what we’re doing here in Newcastle, despite the obligatory negative comments on HTFP. Our website performance is astonishing compared to bigger cities. We’re obviously writing stuff people want to read or they wouldn’t keep coming back in such big numbers. Now the paper has been brought up to date to include more of the stuff that’s proving popular with readers. Surely that’s better than filling it with stuff that’s not popular, while also keeping a dated design? We’ve got to stop rubbishing today’s journalists on the back of newspaper sales decline. It’s a bit more competitive these days and we’re rising to the challenge, ensuring our stories reach as many people as ever. I’ve been in the industry almost 30 years and can honestly say the best of our emerging talent today is as good as anything we had in the past. All we need in Newcastle is a winning football club – but that’s another story!
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It looks a bit like a comic strip front but without the laughs.
They know it themselves, of course, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the circulation.
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A fantastic new look to keep the Chronicle the major player it is for the years ahead. A fantastic brand with great North East people driving it forward and pleasingly without those old, set-in-their-ways subs who always seem to appear on here though I’m pleased to say no longer have a place in the media business. Enjoy your retirement!
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Baffled. What an absolutely disgraceful thing to say.You are pleased that fellow journalists, many not of retirement age, have been forced out of the business they love? Shame on you.
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