Newspaper industry: Is there a market for a new Sunday paper?

A new Northern Ireland edition of the Sunday Independent is being launched this weekend.

The paper's Northern Ireland editor Sam McBride said it was exciting to be part of such a major investment after years of decline in print sales around the world.

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the move to online consumption for many things from news to music to groceries.

So is this a good time to invest in a new print edition of a Sunday paper?

Mr McBride said he believed Northern Ireland had "a clear gap in the market".

When asked about the wisdom of the venture in an interview on BBC Radio Ulster, he pointed out that Northern Ireland was served by three daily papers - the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News and his former employer, the News Letter.

On Sundays the local newspaper market is dominated by two tabloids, the Sunday World and the Sunday Life, leaving room for a broadsheet, Mr McBride said.

He said the new edition of the Sunday Independent would provide "serious, reflective journalism at the weekend when we've all got a bit of time to sit down and leaf through a newspaper".

Earlier this month, another local newspaper, the 151-year-old Banbridge Chronicle, announced it was in trouble and would close at the end of October.

Its owners said the decision followed "declining trading conditions in print media and a perfect storm of commercial difficulties during the pandemic".

So why launch a new paper now, when many newspapers have seen their income decimated by a fall in advertising sales due to the pandemic?

Media director Tony Axon, from communications agency Navigator Blue, said he believed the Independent's new owners Mediahuis had spotted an editorial gap, which they would exploit with quality resources, such as Mr McBride.

"It's an obvious positioning move for the future, offering them the chance to build an unrivalled leading position, genuinely north and south and politically unaligned," he said.

"Digital disruption drove many publishers into a cost cutting mindset where they succeeded in diminishing quality content and losing readers.

"Fortunately more of the publishers left are believers in quality content and not afraid of online. The Independent and [Belfast] Telegraph are an example of this."

Mr Axon said he was hopeful successful models would be built, providing "publishers can recognise how print meets readers' changing needs".

"Several publishers are very close to successful print or online hybrids," he said.

Mr McBride said the decision to invest in the new Sunday paper was down to a change in ownership, which took place shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic began.

The Dublin-based firm that owned both the Sunday Independent and the Belfast Telegraph - Independent News and Media - was sold in 2019 to the Belgian company Mediahuis for £126m.

There was a "very clear change of focus" once Mediahuis took over, according to Mr McBride.

"They're really steeped in newspaper ink. These are newspaper people, they believe in newspapers, they love newspapers," he said.

"But they also know that the world is changing, so they've revolutionised the digital side of things - that's part of the reason why I think this is possible."

He suggested that Covid-19 had made readers more willing to pay for online news content.

"There was a transformation in how people consumed news during the pandemic," Mr McBride said.

"Suddenly I think some people realised - if we don't pay for this online, we're going to lose it."

The Sunday Independent's publishers say its existing content will not be replaced in the new edition, but instead will be "supplemented by additional reports and analysis" from its Northern Ireland correspondents.

Historically, many newspapers in Northern Ireland tended to have an editorial bias related to the political situation, catering for either a mainly unionist or mainly nationalist readership.

But announcing the new publication, the paper's overall editor Alan English said the Northern Ireland edition would have "no agenda other than quality journalism".

Mr McBride agreed, saying that it was not aimed at any particular side of the Northern Ireland divide, but at readers who were interested in what was happening in Northern Ireland and "questioning what's going on".

"What side they come from isn't important," he added.

So is there room for another Sunday title?

"We will ultimately find out very soon," said Mr McBride.