South London Press to relaunch with hyperlocal editions
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Martin Phillp posted on Sunday 3rd June 2012 at 01:31Tindle has decided to relaunch the pan South London borough newspaper with 7 hyperlocal editions on Friday 8th June.
Those areas are Streatham, Brixton, Wimbledon, Wandsworth, Dulwich, Deptford & New Cross and Forest Hill & Sydenham.
Readers who live outside those areas will still be able to buy the pan-borough newspaper as now.
In Dulwich, rival paper Southwark News already has a hyperlocal edition with local stories at the beginning with borough wide news in the middle of the paper. This appears to be in Dulwich at least an opportunity to regain lost ground from the Southwark News.
I’d personally axe the midweek edition which has become very thin on content since the property advertisers have reduced their spend, which would beef up the editorial for Friday’s edition.
I remember around 10 years ago, the SLP tried borough wide versions with inserts in the centre of the paper, this didn’t work.
Interesting to note that the hyperlocal areas they’ve chosen have excellent local websites, such as the East Dulwich Forum and SE23.com where to be fair, have stolen the thunder from local papers, including the Southwark News.
It has to be said that last year’s launch of the Lambeth Post in no way lived up to the hype – the paper is appalling, and most of the content is about Mitcham and Wimbledon and not the borough of Lambeth at all.
They will have to raise their game considerably if the new SLP editions have any chance of success.
I’ve seen the Lambeth Post which shares the same typeface for it’s logo with The Mercury in Asda’s in the Old Kent Road. The bin used is always full, considering it’s being distributed in Southwark for some reason?
Tindle should look at The Mercury in Lewisham and Greenwich. With the paid for SLP having two paid for editions for Deptford/New Cross and Forest Hill/Sydenham, the Mercury should be refocused as a Greenwich only title with Lewisham being covered by the SLP.
I’m surprised they didn’t go hyperlocal with an SE1 edition. Can’t imagine why! ;-)
Yes, the Lambeth Post is available in large quantities at Tesco in Old Kent Road and the Elephant & Castle, neither of which are in the borough the paper purports to serve, and even further from the Merton area which provides most of the content.
Newsquest are as guilty as Tindle for out of editorial area distribution. It’s possible to get the Lewisham News Shopper from outlets in Dulwich!
Well, picked up my first edition of the “Dulwich & South London Press” yesterday.
The first edition started off with Jubilee street party photographs from the local area, then some news from Southwark, Lewisham and Lambeth with the pan borough sports content as per usual.
However, I didn’t notice any news from Wandsworth in this edition, which may suggest that the hyperlocal editions are tailored to just the neighbouring areas.
The hyperlocal editions of the SLP have seen increases in sales of the Friday edition.
One area has seen a rise of 69%.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jun/26/newspaper-closures-johnston-press?newsfeed=true
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It will be interesting to see how they do, considering that the SLP has lost a fair chunk of its editorial staff in the past six months.
In recent weeks the paper has been very thin, with lots of fillers like a page per issue of cute dog/cat pics from Battersea.