I’m usually quite critical of new launches, but in this case I’m impressed. Perhaps the most important thing about 'i' is that it does exactly what they said it was going to do: it’s modern, it’s accessible, and it’s that bit more upmarket than Metro, giving it a clear identity both away from the competition and, crucially, from the Independent itself.
I was worried that it would simply be a cut-down version of the Indie, but it certainly isn’t. I hope they maintain this clear separation between the two titles. And although there are (very few) articles which are practically the same, such as Johann Hari’s view on Obama, the layout and typeface in 'i' make it easier to read.
It’s very colourful, with an eye-catching cover that gets its identity across immediately. The News Matrix is impressive, giving the reader bite-sized chunks of all the main stories of the day at a glance.
But I think they might be missing a trick here in not signposting clearly to readers where they can find more information about each story, if they want it – either in later pages of the paper itself, or perhaps on the Indie’s website ('i' doesn’t have its own site – try searching for it – that is an experience).
The cover boasts that 'i' carries "Britain’s best TV Guide" – and they might just be right. The centre spread is devoted to listings, but the majority of the spread shows programmes by genre rather than by time-slot.
So the reader who knows what they like (and that’s most of us) can simply glance at the relevant section - whether it’s American crime, sport, comedy, reality TV, cooking shows, or whatever – rather than wade through off-putting amounts of irrelevant programming to find a few gems.
The paper’s approach to weather is similarly innovative – colourful and pictorial and fun – and typical of the paper’s willingness to discard newspaper conventions in search of something new and more appropriate to today’s readers, although initially it was going to be a double page spread which included world weather, and as a guilty pleasure I wish they had kept it as a spread.
The sport and business is comprehensive although again, there should be some signposting should the reader want to read more about the business stories on "the business matrix" page otherwise they will probably end up googling the story and ending up on another newspapers website.
Personally, I’d pay 20p for it. I hope it works. It would be lovely to have a success story in the sector.
Claudine Collins is the joint head of investment at MediaCom