Trinity Mirror announced its plans on Saturday. News International responded on Sunday saying that it would match the Daily Mirror's price move by cutting the price of the cheaper 30p Sun.
Les Hinton, the News International executive chairman, told Reuters: "They've picked a fight and we have to respond."
Trinity Mirror said the move is designed to introduce the revamped tabloid, which last month did away with its red-top look, to a wider audience. The Daily Mirror lags more than 1.1m copies behind its rival. In March, it reported an ABC of 2,116,281 compared with the Sun’s 3,379,716, a margin Trinity Mirror hopes the multimillion-pound price-cutting gamble will close.
News International is no stranger to price wars. The Times fought a lengthy battle against the Daily Telegraph in 1996, which saw both papers slash prices and offer major mail order discounts. The Times saw its gains evaporate as the paper returned to normal pricing, leaving the Telegraph's 1m-plus daily sales untouched.
One possible victim in the new battle of the two tabloids could be Richard Desmond’s Daily Star, which has found a growing audience with its mix of unadulterated tabloid journalism and laddism. Desmond’s Express Newspapers could ill afford to invest millions in matching his bigger rivals at a time when it is gearing up to launch a Sunday version of the downmarket tabloid.
The Daily Mirror is hoping that the 37% cut in its cover price will induce readers to sample its recently revamped weekday newspaper which, as well as introducing a new look, brought in new sections and writers.
The new look and tone followed September 11 when the Daily Mirror gave serious journalism in the paper a higher profile, with strong news-led coverage of the events that followed the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York.
At the time of the relaunch, Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan said: "The changes are not about going upmarket. They are about becoming a serious paper with serious news, serious sport, serious gossip and serious entertainment.
"We have a better understanding of what our readers want and these latest changes are designed to take us yet further ahead of the pack. Our new look signals we are a different kind of newspaper," he said.
According to a spokesman for Trinity Mirror spoken to by the Guardian: "Analysis has shown price is the most effective way of building purchase frequency and circulation."
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