The Evening Standard, first published in 1827, went to press for the last time on Thursday.
I remember when <insert anecdotes here, including how it used to have competition, and how it used to be good, and how it used to cost money but you'd still buy it, and how it was never the same after it printed that thing you didn't like> but the rot set in when <insert negatives here, including when they started giving it away in 2009, or when they stopped publishing multiple editions, or when that awful editor took over, or when it was bought by that foreigner, or when they slimmed it down to a few sheets of tissue paper and started focusing on crime and hobnobbing> so perhaps it's no surprise it's closed.
I went to Stratford to pick up the final edition and to engage for the last time in newsprint tradition. I made sure to get my paper from the gentleman in the red jacket because he no longer has a job either, and also because he gave my copy that ultra-authentic fold you don't get from a pile.
There was also a pile, Stratford being a busy station, plonked on top of a red hopper that won't be clogging up the concourse from next week. They'd done that thing where they displayed the front cover in a panel on the side, this because the actual cover was an four page advert about the rebirth of the newspaper next week. I still smile when I remember that the Standard's THATCHER DIES splash was completely hidden by a Sky Sports wraparound advert, because it's absolutely what she would have wanted.
Thursday's paper had only 28 pages, wraparound excluded, down from 72 pages when George Osborne relaunched it in 2018. It included 14 news stories, a proper editorial, two pages of business and three pages of sport, so was slim but still on the ball. The cover story was about the rail unions but pivoted around an interview with the Transport Secretary so was proper journalism. Several big companies had taken out full- and half-page ads including British Airways, Uber, John Lewis and Tesco, suggesting the advertising market hadn't yet collapsed. The paper might no longer have kept you occupied all the way home to Orpington but it was still a more a substantial package than a freesheet might deserve. And all now dead.
The most intriguing article was by editor-in-chief Dylan Jones looking ahead to the paper's rebirth next week. It'll be called The London Standard and will only be published on Thursdays, the aim being to become an "end-of-week treat". He also promised "many many more pages", which won't be difficult.
That suggests features rather than news and longer pieces rather than nibbles. It won't be about what happened today or yesterday, more about how things are going generally. In particular it's not attempting to be a weekly local newspaper, more an opinionated magazine, in the hope that people will still want to pick it up. But it won't be for everyone.
The key word there is upmarket, i.e. in marketingspeak they're targeting ABC1s. It's not going to be a Metro packed with titbits and gossip that everyone picks up, more the select choice of critical folk with disposable income. I've long felt the Evening Standard pivoted more towards Putney than Plaistow and it sounds like the new version is doubling down on that. I mean look.
What you'll see already are the newly branded blue bins the London Standard will be distributed from, 530 in total across zones 1 to 6. They'll be shared with a relaunched City AM, the idea being that the financial freesheet uses them from Monday to Thursday and the London Standard takes over from 4pm on Thursday afternoon. This avoids the current ignominy whereby all the unread Evening Standards get pulped the following morning when Metro fills the hopper - they should now survive the weekend.
The new paper is planning to distribute just 150,000 copies per week, that's about half of what it was printing just a couple of months ago. It's also only enough for 2% of London's adult population to pick one up, whereas Metro is pumping out 600,000 copies every morning.
Look out for the new London Standard on Thursday afternoon and make up your own mind. But don't expect to find much up-to-date news in it, as the capital finally abandons its last local daily paper, and don't expect to find that reassuring fold across the cover either.
