London's Evening Standard to close daily print edition, launch weekly

The owners of London’s Evening Standard newspaper have said they will close its daily newspaper and replace it with a weekly outlet, after almost 200 years of publication, citing competition from online news sources and lower commuter traffic.

The newspaper, once a must-read for commuters travelling in the capital, has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on London's underground transit network, fewer passengers as more people work from home and a general decline print circulation.

It has lost £84.5m in the past six years, according to its most recent accounts. The Standard is part owned by Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev. Its other shareholders include a bank with close links to the Saudi government.

“The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London," Paul Kanareck, the newspaper’s chair, told staff on Wednesday morning, according to the Guardian newspaper.

He said the company planned to launch “a brand new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency”, with the focus shifting to increasing its website audience.

Kanareck said there would be an “impact on staffing”, with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies.

He also suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: “A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world’s greatest city.”

Before the Covid pandemic the Evening Standard distributed more than 600,000 copies a day across London, but the latest figures show this is now just 275,000 copies a day. The cost of paper has also rocketed in recent years, with the outlet responding by cutting the numbers of pages it publishes.

The closure will leave business newspaper City AM, recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, as the only print news outlet in the city.

Once a paid-for tabloid, the Evening Standard published several editions a day. The newspaper was sold to the Lebedev family for £1 in 2009 and turned into a freesheet. It backed Boris Johnson for mayor of London. Johnson later arranged a peerage for Lebedev.

Largely seen as a Tory-supporting newspaper in a city that has increasingly backed the Labour Party, the Standard’s editors have included the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne - who was sacked by then prime minister Theresa May - and Emily Sheffield, the sister-in-law of the current Foreign Secretary, David Cameron.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com