'Newszine' replaces two of Archant's free weeklies

Posted by Clara Martínez Turco on September 3, 2010 at 9:07 AM

UK publishing group Archant has stopped publishing two of its free titles, The Harlow Herald and East Herts Herald, and replaced them with a weekly "newszine" called Scene, MediaGuardian reported today.

The new publication will have four local editions for Harlow, Broxbourne, Hertford, Ware and Stortford, according to Press Gazette. The 55,000 copies will be mainly distributed door-to-door although paid-for-sales, free pick-up and hand distribution will also be available, HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk revealed.

"The content will be wrapped up in a package which aims to fuse the excitement and thrust of a newspaper with the glamour and comfort of a magazine, supported by the website and a mobile site," Archant's Business Development Manager Jonathan Tewson stated in a press release.

Managing Director Stuart McCreery said the Scene series "was born out of necessity" due to the challenging "economic and multi-media climate in which we operate."

The last editions of the two weeklies were printed this week. Until June of 2010, The Harlow Herald had an average circulation of 36,227 copies, while The East Herts Herald distributed 29,109 copies, according to MediaGuardian.