November 06, 2006

Newspaper Wars!


A new evening newspaper has gone into circulation in recent weeks, published by the Daily Record and focusing on Edinburgh. The Record is a Glasgow based publisher and their new product is in direct competition with the long-standing Edinburgh based Evening News. The 'News' is 35p while the Record version is selling for 15p and offering freebies such as chocolate, water and hair gel to persuade and bribe the people of Edinburgh into buying their rag! Edinburgh folk have a proud record of being loyal to local companies...it is one of the few UK cities where the main bus company is entirely locally-run having fought off fierce competition from Stagecoach and First when the buses were de-regulated. It is to be hoped that the Evening News also fights off these encroachers from the West!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Record has also brought out a Glasgow evening edition (also 15p) to compete with the Evening Times. No idea how well they're doing, but they resort to bribery over here too.

TanDeeJay said...

Bribery as a way to sell newspapers ... nice marketing tactics you got there
he he he!

midnitebara said...

hi 先生! ひさしぶり。
small cities like Akita dont have shimbun wars. But the newspaper salesmen here can be so irritating, always knocking at my door asking me to buy their paper. They dont seem to notice that I'm gaijin and won't or can't read them.

have a nice day!

G Fraser said...

midnitebara - i had the same problem and I look a lot more gaijin than you!!

jackie - hope glaswegians are shunning the record's blatant bribery tactics as well.

tandeejay - interesting marketing as there is no way they can make any profit whatsoever!

Anonymous said...

Probably too soon to say, though entirely anecdotally (ie what I've noticed - so not scientifically 100% here) is that I don't think I've seen anyone on the bus reading hte Record, although I do see a few Evening Times. So I suspect the Record may well disappear in a few months. We'll see.