In the world of publishing it seems that major announcements are like buses. Nothing for ages and then two coming along at the same time. Indeed, in the last few weeks two heavy hitting publishers have both made contrasting statements about their futures that are of great importance to the consumer PR and b2b PR industries.

Firstly The Independent, which first appeared back in October 1986, and the Independent on Sunday made the sad but much expected announcement that it would cease publishing its print editions from the end of March – though an online edition would still be available. Given that the number of print copies dropped for the title by roughly 400,000 to just 28,000 a day over the last 25 years it’s understandable why the publishers made the tough but necessary decision.

Only a short time later Trinity Mirror announced that it would be launching the first standalone national daily newspaper to appear in the last 30 years. The paper ‘New Day’, which will be aimed primarily at women, also plans to target ‘time poor’ readers who only have a certain amount of time to dedicate to reading the news. Somewhat surprisingly it won’t be supported by an online presence but rather will use social media including Twitter and Facebook to get readers talking about the articles in the print version.

While some commentators are highlighting that Trinity Mirror is going against the grain by not supporting New Day with an online presence, it may work in their favour as they seek to build a strong two way relationship with readers through social media. Perhaps this is the best way forward given Twitter’s recent announcement that it was considering changing the character limit for its tweets.

The ongoing decline of print copies being sold across the board is evident and with many of us getting our daily news fix – whether it’s current affairs, celebrity news or gossip from social media – it will be interesting to see how New Day’s readership will play out over the coming months.

Interesting insight into trends in where people gather their news information from can be found at: www.clareville.com