The Weekend Australian to publish Sunday edition
National newspaper The Australian will this weekend launch a one-off Sunday edition.
The newspaper will offer a Sunday edition to subscribers of The Weekend Australian.
The edition is sponsored by BMW and will come just one day before rival publisher Fairfax Media switches The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from broadsheet to compact – which will also be sponsored by BMW on the first day.
“It’s a BMW sponsor deal and is a one-off deal,” said Clive Mathieson editor of The Australian. “We did, of course, used to have a Sunday edition of The Australian many moons ago.”
“It was an idea cooked up by BMW and advertising. We will have a small but dedicated team of people in on Saturday to produce it.”
Mathieson says the move is not aimed at Fairfax. “It is a small run and will only be available to home delivery subscribers,” he said.
Newsagents have been briefed to deliver the Sunday edition only to subscribers of the The Weekend Australian. There is no cover price and the paper will not be on sale.
The letter to newsagents informs them: “There is no cover price, we will be automatically crediting $0.95 per delivered copy to your account.”
Nic Christensen
The memo to newsagents:
Letter to newsagents informing them of the special Sunday edition
This was on an industry blog last Friday: http://www.newsagencyblog.com......australian
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BMW will be underwriting the cost of a whole new edition of The Australian, on a Sunday? Massive $$ !
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Interesting to see reactions to this initative from those at the coalface over at the always insightful newsagencyblog – http://www.newsagencyblog.com......ustralian/
Not happy Jan (sorry Sensis – too soon?)
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As an avid newspaper reader I like the idea. That said, there’s SO much stuff to read in Saturday’s SMH & Oz that I’m not sure I could face any more by Sunday. That said, the Sunday papers are fluffy dribble and only useful for the sports results….
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Newsagents are not known for their initiative and are possibly the grumpiest retailers in existence.
Anyone who specialises in throwing a shrink-wrapped newspaper up a tree, over the fence or under my car every morning – when they remember at all – is not going to be receptive to an industry initiative that means just a little more once-off work.
In a dying industry you’d think they’d be more receptive.
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@ Paul the freelancer…. Agreed, apart from City Rail employees and public pool attendants, newsagents would have to be the grumpiest human beings on the planet!!!!
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If you’ve spent any time on the newsagency blog (I am a regular reader as I always find it so interesting to get their coalface perspective) you may realise some of the challenges their industry is experiencing – and the issues they regularly face with publishers and distributors. Seems to me it’s a tough gig!
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The newsagency blog is packed with insights from the coalface of newsagents, great lessons in what works and what doesn’t.
Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that and work with newsagents, who are after all in some ways a customer as much as the end-user (end-buyer?) of the product?
Publishers and distributors could do a lot worse than to get advice from the newsagency blog and work with the more proactive newsagents to sharpen the way they do business.
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Not saying newsagents don’t face challenges, just saying they’re grumpy to customers.
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Not surprising to hear the newsagents squealing about this. After all, they ultimately succeeded in forcing every newspaper in the country to stop publishing Christmas Day editions because the newsagents were too lazy to home deliver them.
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Who needs the Weekend Australian on Sunday when we’ve already had The Weekend Australian on Saturday. A weekend is two days and has already been covered by the first edition.
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Might have been a good idea if the newsagents could be trusted to deliver them.
Ours didn’t but I bet they will tell News they did.
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Some of Saturday’s articles were so nicely written they went ahead and printed them in the Sunday edition as well.
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