Don’t stop the press: Pro-Remain national paper launched after Brexit vote lives on
A pro-Remain “pop-up” newspaper launched by a regional publisher is to continue printing beyond its original plan of four weeks.
Archant launched the New European in the aftermath of the UK’s Brexit vote. It promoted itself as the “pop-up paper for the 48 per cent” who voted Remain in the referendum.
The broadsheet newspaper has come out once a week at the cost of £2 since 8 July. Archant said the newspaper would initially only run for four weeks, but the publisher today announced it would be running the title for at least another four weeks.
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The launch of a new national newspaper came after three others – the Independent, Independent on Sunday and Trinity Mirror’s New Day, which was launched in February – were closed down by publishers in the first half of the year.
Asked why the New European can succeed where New Day failed, Archant chief executive Jeff Henry told City PM: “First of all, I don’t think they’re in any way a valid comparison. I think they’re a completely different concept.”
He pointed to the low cost base of the New European, which was launched in nine days with no market research and a small amount of marketing budget. It is also utlising existing staff.
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“Secondly, when you consider something like New Day then actually you look at that and say ‘well, that was designed to be a long-term brand’. We never designed New European to do that, so we’re able to [keep] the cost base on a completely different scale.”
He said the sales of New European in the first week, believed to be around 40,000, were similar to those of New Day when it closed.