My little i: Britain’s new national newspaper

The launch of The Independent’s new i newspaper marks the first new daily national to hit the shelves in nearly 25 years. The 20p paper is designed for “time-poor newspaper readers”, aiming to keep news items short and sweet without sacrificing quality of content. The first edition dealt with key issues including the housing crisis, movie star Mel Gibson’s fall from grace and whether or not Bert, the monobrowed yellow puppet from Sesame Street, is gay.

Here at Measurement Matters, we have watched the shift in newspaper reading habits with great interest and the release of this newspaper marks another notable development in a medium facing tough times. The Independent has seen its readership decline from 250,000 three years ago to 183,000 readers a day and our UK Pulse survey reveals that 38% of the UK adult population does not read a daily newspaper at all.

It will be interesting to see the newspaper’s reception and uptake in the coming months. Roy Greenslade, writing for The Guardian, described the newspaper as an “upmarket Metro” and discusses the possible impact that i could have on sales of The Independent, which costs £1. On the BBC News site, Torin Douglas notes that ifi “does not work – or works too well and takes sales from the mothership – some observers believe the idea of a free national newspaper may still be on the cards”.

On Friday, our colleagues at Gorkana will be talking to Adam Leigh, deputy editor of The Independent to find out more about the launch of i, discussing opportunities for PRs and why the newspaper isn’t just another London Lite. Head over to Gorkanapr.com to sign up for free PR news alerts.

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