The New Paper is set to become a five-day publication and will scrap its Saturday edition by the end of this month. The last Saturday edition will be circulated on 30 Dec 2017.
This comes after My Paper merged with The New Paper last October. The move, by local media conglomerate Singapore Press Holdings, caused The New Paper to become a free newspaper, geared at competing against Mediacorp’s flagship English daily, Today.
This August, broadcasting giant Mediacorp made the decision to axe the print publication of Today and the daily is now exclusively available online.
The New Paper’s latest announcement also comes after news of mass retrenchment exercises being carried out within Singapore Press Holdings.
The New Paper editor, Eugene Wee, attributed the decision to axe the paper’s Saturday edition to their reader base’s consumption patterns, in a press statement yesterday.
He said: “A large percentage of our readers are PMETs who work 5-day work weeks. Furthermore, Saturday travel patterns of readers are getting more varied as people go about their weekend activities. Hence, we have decided to focus our resources on weekdays to give our readers the best of news and lifestyle stories.”
Read the full press release here:
The New Paper to become a five-day publication
Singapore, 19 December 2017 – Starting 2018, The New Paper (TNP) will become a five-day publication on weekdays as it ceases its Saturday edition.
Since its merger with My Paper in 2016, TNP has been a free newspaper targeting professionals, executives, managers and technicians (PMETs) with news on local affairs, economy, property, business, sports and bread and butter issues. It has a daily average circulation of 300,000 copies.
Eugene Wee, editor of TNP, said:”A large percentage of our readers are PMETs who work 5-day work weeks. Furthermore, Saturday travel patterns of readers are getting more varied as people go about their weekend activities. Hence, we have decided to focus our resources on weekdays to give our readers the best of news and lifestyle stories.”
The last Saturday edition of The New Paper will be on 30 December 2017. The weekday editions will continue to be available in both print and online.
Issued by Singapore Press Holdings Ltd
Co. Regn. No. 198402868E