News Limited to deploy ‘paper boys’ to counter Fairfax compact launch
News Limited will put paper boys back on the beat on Monday as the publisher attempts to spoil the first day of Fairfax Media’s relaunch of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald as compacts.
News Limited will also increase the size of its tabloids in Sydney and Melbourne – The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun – by 20 pages above normal.
News Limited confirmed to Mumbrella that it will be deploying distribution staff across the city at major train stations across Sydney and Melbourne to sell its newspapers. “Yes, there will be some distribution staff with papers at railway stations next week,” said a News Limited spokesman.
“The papers will be the appropriate size for the news agenda on Monday, as they always are.”
Man, I love competition!
Let them go…
What’s with this exercise and what is it supposed to achieve? Can someone please tell me if I’m being naive in thinking it’s a waste of effort. I’m not a publicist or a marketing person so I have no experience to fall back on; I’d just like to know what it’s expected to do.
Tell me they didn’t actually say paper ‘boys’? I know newspapers are an old-school media but I think stipulating the sex of employees these days is illegal…
Hope the paper boys are cute!
Relax LW! The article quotes a News Ltd spokesperson as calling them distribution staff. I dunno who called them “paper boys”, maybe the author…
I can’t see this strategy working at all unless the papers to be given away are free. I commute every day on the train or bus in Melbourne and the number of people I see with traditional newspapers on the train has dropped dramatically in recent years. More and more commuters are using iPads, iPhones and other devices to read the newspaper (or books for that matter).
Yesterday I saw a bloke selling papers on the footpath in anorthern beaches suburb. It took me a few moments to figure out what he was doing.
Was he holding a copy aloft and shouting “read all about it”?
Nope, he was slouched in a camping chair staring at his feet and listening to music through headphones.