Local World wants to reinvent the evening paper with apps

The Bristol Post, The Cambridge News and The Derby Telegraph are just some of the regional newspapers that in recent years have dropped the word 'evening' from their mastheads as they began publishing their print editions in the morning.

Now, the three publications are among a first wave of UK titles owned by regional publisher Local World releasing new evening apps, in an effort to "capture the engagement of the homeward-bound commuter".

Other newspapers joining the initiative are The Gloucestershire Echo, Hull Daily Mail, Leicester Mercury, Nottingham Post, South Wales Evening Post, Stoke's The Sentinel and The Plymouth Herald.

"There's something really special about the sense of an evening newspaper in a community, as the kind of thing people would pick up just before they get on the bus to go home, and that's missing now," said Matt Kelly, digital director at Local World.

The idea is supported by Google, and Local World is one of the company's partners in the Digital News Initiative, aimed at fostering innovation in the publishing industry.

Each free app showcases around 15-20 stories in a "curated package" of the best web content from throughout the day, covering topics like news, sport, features and lifestyle.

The new apps have been developed in collaboration with software house Kaldor and launched on Android devices last week, with iOS versions planned for release later this year.

Readers will be able to download the evening editions as a bundle at 5pm Monday to Fridays and read the news offline afterwards, as a data connection isn't required.


Screengrab of The Bristol Post evening edition.

Editors will choose the stories that give people "a sense of the pulse of the community that day", said Kelly, and the advantage from a journalistic point of view is that the content "is getting a life on the website and also within the context of these apps".

"We hope that people will get the push notification that the evening edition has landed, and they will graze through all the stories, reading those that interest them and when they finish, they would be walking up to their door and be completely informed about what happened in their city that day."

Although some of the newspapers launching evening apps already have a mobile presence through previously developed apps, Kelly said the two shouldn't mutually exclude each other.

He pointed out that as BBC News has different editions, like the breakfast news or the 6 o'clock program, the idea is to "editionalise" the content by anticipating what readers are doing at certain times of the day.

"The more times throughout the course of the day you can reach somebody, the more that will enhance the engagement across everything you do. For us, it's about relevance and we're not seeking just to own that 5 o'clock commute home."

In terms of commercial strategy, Local World is looking at sponsorship and native advertising and Kelly believes there is great potential for local businesses in the participating regions to affiliate themselves with the evening apps.

"If we can capture somebody's engagement for 15 or 20 minutes every work day, that's incredibly valuable for a commercial partner."

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