[dropcap type=”circle”]T[/dropcap]rinity Mirror, the largest regional and national newspaper publisher in the country, has announced the closure of the Wirral News. It says that in Wirral there is no longer a “viable, scalable or long-term future” for free print products.
The bi-weekly title, which only four years ago distributed around 100,000 copies, will cease publication in July.
Announcing the closure, the regional publisher mentioned a monthly publication recently launched by Wirral Borough Council, saying that it had contributed to an “increasingly crowded” marketplace.
A statement from Trinity Mirror said: “We believe that there is no longer a viable, scalable or long-term future for free/giveaway print products within the Wirral marketplace and have therefore, decided to bring forward our digital plans and ambitions which will benefit readers and advertisers alike.
“We have made a number of changes to the Wirral News operating model to extend its life whilst we concentrated our efforts and resources in developing and growing a digital audience of unrivalled scale and quality, targets which we continue to surpass.”
The statement added: “The sheer size, quality and targeting capabilities for advertisers of our liverpoolecho.co.uk audience and its penetration on Wirral and Merseyside now provides modern, bespoke and compelling digital solutions for advertisers as well as continually updated news and video content 24/7 for readers.”
Wirral News’ former competitor, Newsquest-owned Wirral Globe, distributes over 88,000 copies a week.
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