Did you see The London Paper last night? It came with a wraparound from its News International stablemate The Sun. Using the England football match as a hook, its front page gave us the thoughts of three Sun columnists - Terry Venables, Ian Wright and Harry Redknapp - and the inside pages had articles in the distinctive Sun font.
Given The London Paper's imminent demise (only nine days away), this seems a clear attempt by NI to introduce younger readers - who might not normally pay for a paper - to The Sun and persuade them to move over.
But it isn't an obvious transition. TLP is a more optimistic and apolitical title than The Sun. With its mix of celebs, dating, green stories, cat photos and nightlife features, it sometimes reads more like a student newspaper. Only the celeb stories are really carried in The Sun too, but will that be enough to attract TLP's readers to it?
It'll be interesting to see where TLP's readers go after it folds. My guess is they won't buy a paper at all - I don't have research to prove it, but my anecdotal experience is that most of its regular readers didn't buy one before, so there's no reason they will do afterwards. But I guess NI think there's no harm in trying a bit of free advertising.
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