News media mogul plans three new papers

Press, 6 August 1987, Page 18

News media mogul plans three new papers

NZPA-Reuter London The publisher, Robert Maxwell, plans to launch three more newspapers early next year in spite of having to close down his 24-hour “London Daily News” because of a lack of readers. Mr Maxwell, who owns Mirror Group Newspapers, said through a spokesman that he intended starting a middlemarket national daily, a London evening newspaper, and a give-away newspaper for London. His “London Daily News” collapsed recently

after failing to reach its circulation target of 200,000. Mr Maxwell, explaining why he intended to launch the three new titles, said he intended learning lessons from the failure of the “London Daily News.” “We are going to spend a lot of money interviewing our readers, former readers and advertisers to find out exactly why it did fail,” he said. When he closed the paper without warning it was losing money and had a readership of only 90,000, compared with more than 550,000 for its

arch-rival, the well-estab-lished “Evening Standard.” The only daily free newspaper in Britain is the three-year-old “Birmingham ' Daily News,” which has yet to make a profit. Mr Maxwell, whose Mirror Group publishes two national titles, has international news media interests ranging from cable and satellite television to newspapers and books. Many are part of his British Printing and Communication Corporation.