Newspaper launch heralds Birmingham media battle

WEST MIDLANDS media entrepreneur Chris Bullivant is planning to launch a new weekly newspaper for Birmingham in a move which is certain to spark a battle for advertisers and readers with Trinity Mirror, publishers of the Birmingham Mail.

The new title, called ‘The Birmingham Press’ will be a high-pagination  weekly paper printed on high-quality newsprint and distributed through a mix of free home delivery and paid-for sales.

Heading up the project is Tony Lennox, who until last year was editorial director of Trinity Mirror’s weekly newspapers in the Midlands. In that position, he went head-to-head with Bullivant-owned weekly titles in Solihull, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

Mr Bullivant has made no secret of his desire to re-enter the Birmingham market. In the mid-1980s he launched the Daily News, the UK’s first free daily paper, and two years ago made a bid for Trinity Mirror Midlands, publishers of the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Mail when the group was put up for sale by its parent company. Trinity Mirror eventually withdrew TMM from sale when an MBO collapsed as the credit crunch bit in 2007.

The Birmingham Press is expected to contain at least 96 pages, and editorial director Mr Lennox told TheBusinessDesk.com: “This is going to be a very substantial, traditional weekly paper with everything you’d expect: a business and features sections, with property at its core.”

Mr Bullivant has a track record of building weekly newspaper launches on the back of residential property advertising, although Lennox would not be drawn on whether the Press was negotiating with consortia of estate agents or individual advertisers.

Mr Lennox said: “Chris, like me, is a Brummie, and he believes wholeheartedly in local papers and local ownership. That’s the key to our success – the whole team is Birmingham born and bred.”

“There is definitely a gap in the market, with the changes to the Birmingham Post and the changed landscape in local papers, although we’re not going head-to-head with the Post and Mail.”

But Trinity Mirror is unlikely to agree the Press is no threat to its activities in Birmingham. If Mr Bullivant were to win over enough Birmingham estate agents, the impact on the bottom line of the Birmingham Mail in particular could be significant. The former evening title was relaunched as a morning paper earlier this year as part of a £10m package of savings that also saw the Birmingham Post go weekly and several outlying weekly titles shut down, with the loss of dozens of jobs. Advertising in the regional press has declined sharply with the double impact of the recession and the move of many advertisers to online media.

Mr Bullivant himself faced difficulties in 2008 when his Observer Standard Newspapers company  was put into administration only to be bought by Bullivant Media. Titles include the Solihull Observer, the Redditch Standard and the Bromsgrove Standard.

The Birmingham Press is expected to be launched in the middle of April out of offices in Knowle near Solihull. Mr Lennox said sales staff were starting work this week.

Trinity Mirror declined to comment.