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Owner: Trinity Mirror

In a declining regional press market, the recent ABC results show the Birmingham Post has done better than expected over the past year, with a decrease of 1.5 % to 12,813, compared with a 9.9 % drop the previous year. So why change?

As it is AB skewed, it is understandable that it wishes to reach a broader audience in an attempt to boost circulation, but the changes it is making may not be relevant to its largely business readership.

Marc Reeves, who has been editor for a year, feels the time is right to update the design. The aim is to make the paper brighter and easier to read, while bringing the reader more added value through the inclusion of three new glossy magazines. City Living and Select Living will go out in the paper every Thursday. Whether they actually add value is questionable, as they have always been available free to selected postcodes and in some newsagents.

A new magazine, Business and Property Review, will be published on the last Thursday of every month.

The Weekend section on a Saturday is being relaunched as a tabloid magazine and other changes include revisions to the design and typeface of the main paper.

Sales houses are increasingly promoting competitive packages and it is likely they will cross-sell a magazine and newspaper package, and give incentives to non-core advertisers. The three magazines will also give advertisers more opportunities to target consumers in relevant environments.

It is questionable whether the overall effect will boost circulation. The Birmingham Post's finite readership of a business audience within the city affirms its functionality. However, in this respect, doubt remains whether the revamp will be worth it in an already vulnerable regional market, which is becoming increasingly less cost-effective to advertisers as a whole.

- Review by Alex Gibson, press buyer at Vizeum.