19 Oct 10

The Launch of i - MediaCom's Point of View

by Catherine Pronzato, Head of Press Strategy

The Independent announced yesterday that they will be publishing a quality daily newspaper from next Tuesday 26th October. Priced at 20p and distributed nationally from Monday to Friday, the ‘i’ is a surprise and welcome innovation in the current national press market, which continues to struggle with headlines of decline, with September ABCs reporting another year on year decrease for the daily market.

The ‘i’ is designed with the commuter audience in mind, and with 56 pages is said to be a concise, yet comprehensive daily digest of the news for the quality reader, who due to modern day time constraints, doesn’t have the opportunity to pore over the deeper comment in the traditional qualities.

The paper will consist of succinct news stories that will give the reader the one key nugget of information on any particular headline. The title is keen to feed the appetite for the upmarket commuter who has perhaps outgrown the Metro and is currently left wanting more quality comment on their 20 minute commute.

In terms of commercial opportunities, the Independent has confirmed that the title will also be available to download as an iPad app and we anticipate that they will be keen to look at package opportunities across their platforms and title portfolio.

The model appears, at least in part, to be based on the relatively successful ‘news magazine’ model of The Economist and The Week, who despite turbulent times in the wider magazine market have continued to celebrate consecutive year on year circulation increases with their snapshots and comment on weekly news stories. Whilst The Week is a weekly summary and comment on the last 7 days news, the ‘i’ will adopt a similar approach to summarise and give quality comment and tone in a daily format. Some may argue that a daily snapshot is well served by the current news providers online, whilst the commuter audience is well served by the freesheets.

A launch in the national press arena may even have raised a few eyebrows amongst press cynics, especially given that there is a 20p cover price. Whilst we applaud such innovation and investment in the national press market, it is difficult to see how the title will sustain a paid for model in this current climate and trend of decline in paid for titles. The product does appear to have identified a gap in the market, but whether people are prepared to pay for that product seems unlikely. We predict that there will be a demand for this product but that consumers will not be willing to dig around for their 20p and that the title will be free to commuters within six months, positioning itself as a quality rival to the Metro.

Is this a shock innovation in the press market? Perhaps. That Lebedev is making a brave and bold move charging a cover price, is certain. What is amusing, however, is that the name of the Independent's new national daily ‘i’ alludes to the exact reason some cynics believe it is doomed to failure. App anyone?