Much of the pounds 23.5 million annual spend in Today is likely to be
lost to the press market, buyers believe. Tim McCloskey, deputy media
director of BMP DDB Needham, said: ‘A lot of schedules expand to fill
the number of titles available. Those funds will go back to the client
because they’ve nowhere else to go.’
However, smaller advertisers have lost an important route to inexpensive national coverage. Bill Jones, deputy chairman of MediaCom, said: "Lots of clients want to be national but don’t have much money to throw at it. For them, this is bad news."
Of Today’s 1.7 million readers, only 35 per cent did not read any other
paper. As many as 36 per cent also read the Sun, 27 per cent the Mirror,
18 per cent the Mail, 13 per cent the Express and 16 per cent the Daily
Star, according to a National Readership Survey for July to September.
Rival tabloids moved fast to exploit Today’s closure; the Sun inserted a
four-page pull-out, along with two weeks’ worth of cut-price coupons, in
the final edition of Today. A copy of the Daily Mail was delivered free
to all Today subscribers the day after the closure was announced, with
the offer of an eight-week trial at a discounted cover price.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror has also said it will pay pounds 5 to any
reader who introduces a former Today buyer to the title, and the Express
also ran a front-page ‘welcome’ to Today readers last Friday.
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