Daily Mail owner planning Sunday tabloid
The owner of the Daily Mail is understood to be planning a new mass-market Sunday tabloid to cash in on the closure of the News of the World.
Daily Mail & General Trust could launch the title as soon as next weekend, with a dummy edition planned for this Sunday.
Possible names for the paper include the Sunday and the Sunday Lite, echoing DMGT's now-defunct London freesheet, London Lite, according a report by Reuters. The news agency said former Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie, who left the paper last month to join the Mail, could be a columnist on the new launch.
Rival Sunday titles have scrambled to fill the gap left by the News of the World, which was published for the final time last Sunday in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that on Friday led to the resignation of the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks.
DMGT already publishes the mid-market tabloid Mail on Sunday, which will up its print run this weekend, as will the red-top Sunday Mirror and the People, both owned by Trinity Mirror, with all three titles planning price cuts of up to 50% in some areas.
Richard Desmond's Daily Star Sunday is increasing its print run by 1.2m and launching a new magazine, OK! Extra.
However, the launch of a brand new Sunday red-top tabloid by DMGT would dramatically raise the stakes in the battle for the 2.67 million readers who previously bought the News of the World, according to the ABC circulation figures published on Friday for June, the paper's last full month of publication.
News International is understood to be planning to launch a Sunday edition of the Sun to replace the News of the World as early as August, with the former NoW deputy editor Victoria Newton strongly tipped to be editor.
Executives from NI are said to have been testing the water for a potentially swift launch of a Sunday edition of the Sun in conversations with advertisers and media buyers.
The publisher will also be running full-page ads apologising for the phone-hacking scandal in the national press at the weekend, the News Corporation deputy chief operating officer, James Murdoch, confirmed on Friday.
DMGT announced this week it was raising the price of the Daily Mail in a bid to counter rising newsprint costs and a deteriorating advertising market, prompting the company's share price to hit an 18-month low.
The Mail on Sunday is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closure of the News of the World, with an average sale in May of 1.92m copies.
It is followed by the Sunday Mirror, with an average circulation of 1.09m, and the Sunday Times, with 1.05m. The People averaged 481,224, ahead of the Daily Star Sunday with 305,984.
A DMGT spokesman had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication
Your kidding me, from NOTW to DailyFail+Kelvin Mckenzie...Out with one useless tabloid in with another.
I have a serious/brilliant business pitch, why doesn't someone just grow a pair and put out a Sunday paper that just talks about Sport? Hire all/(some) of the NOTW sports journo's and put out a 50-70 page paper all about sport?
The markets there and I would buy it for 90-120p on a Sunday, if only I had investors for it...Dragons Den? Seriously think it would be a good idea, done with the right mix of gossip/interviews/rumours and some proper pieces on UEFA/FIFA along with Cricket/Rugby/Racing/Athletics stories it would be brilliant. Even have a grassroots style section where we could search out local sports initiatives making a difference in communities. Plenty of ideas for this, wish I had the 100 million+ money I would need to launch the **** thing and the 100+ journo's...And the offices...Yeah I mean it's just a basic idea with no foundations...Are you in?