Trinity Mirror confirms launch as ex-Post staff join rival

TRINITY MIRROR has confirmed it is to launch a sister paper to the Birmingham Post to fight the challenge for property advertising by newcomer the Birmingham Press.

As reported by TheBusinessDesk.com earlier this week, the Birmingham Post Lite will be delivered free to around 18,000 homes in the south Birmingham areas of Harborne and Moseley.

Meanwhile, Tony Lennox, editor of the Press, revealed that a number of fellow former Post journalists would be joining his team. These include former Post business editor John Duckers, who will write a version of his online business gossip column, and former sports editor Fraser Thompson. Former Post economics editor Neville Boyd-Maunsell would also be contributing some content, said Mr Lennox, as well as a number of former Post staff who were now working as freelance journalists.

Trinity Mirror, owners of the Post’s publisher BPM Media, said the Birmingham Post Lite would carry a selection of its sister title’s editorial content but not its business news, which would remain in the paid-for. It will combine south Birmingham news with the features and leisure content from the Post, said the publisher.

Central to the package offered to readers would be the upmarket Post Property magazine, which is crucial to lure estate agents’ advertising away from rival publisher Chris Bullivant.

The Birmingham PressThe first edition is expected to be published on Thursday next week, the day before the launch of Bullivant’s Birmingham Press.

The launch of the Birmingham Post Lite comes just four months after the relaunch of the main Birmingham Post as a business-focussed weekly title, after 150 years of daily publishing. Trinity Mirror says sales of the new weekly Post have risen by around 25%.

John Griffith, managing director of BPM Media, Trinity Mirror, said: “Birmingham Post Lite will deliver a quality title to a quality audience and we are confident it will prove hugely attractive to advertisers and build on the successful relaunch of the Post in 2009.”

“The paid-for Birmingham Post is an indispensable product for its
professional and business audience in Birmingham with up to 200 pages in total each week. Birmingham Post Lite will offer a quality audience a more general read of news and features but delivered by the same professional team and all to the same high standards.”

  • Disclosure: the author of this article is a former editor of the Birmingham Post

 

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