City titles fend off Record PM assault NEWSPAPERS: GOOD EVENING

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Mar 4, 2007 | by Julia Fields

TWO of Scotland's major evening newspapers have fended off advances by new entrant Record PM, according to the latest ABC regional newspaper figures.

Record PM, which is published by Trinity Mirror, hit the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow in September with a cover price of just 15p.

The move was predicted to be a major blow for the cities' incumbent evening papers, which are already fighting industry-wide competitive pressures from the internet and freesheets.

ABC figures for the six months to December 31 2006, however, show that both Edinburgh's Evening News and Glasgow's Evening Times have slowed their circulation declines.

The Edinburgh Evening News decreased by 5.4-per cent to 53,584 compared to the same period the year before, but that was still an improvement over the 6.5-per cent drop in the six months to the end of 2005.

The Glasgow Evening Times fared even better, declining only 2.5- per cent to 79,365 for the six months to December 31, 2006. That was an improvement over the 3.9-per cent decline during the last six months of 2005. John McLellan, editor of the Evening News, said: "Record PM is not doing anything to us. The last four months of the period (when Record PM was launched) we started to record pretty good figures." He said that the paper was concentrating on improving its interaction with the community by incorporating readers' restaurant, movie, concert and football match reviews, among other measures.

Record PM, however, upped the ante in January by going free and launching further editions in both Aberdeen and Dundee.