THE evening newspaper market is not the healthiest place for. David to take on Goliath. The new Evening News - a slim operation - now faces the might of Independent Newspapers and the highly profitable Evening Herald.
Since the collapse of the Irish Press group a year ago, the Evening Herald has had a monopoly with two price rises, massively increased circulation and more pages to accommodate the advertising boost due to its competitor's collapse.
Evening newspapers have been in decline in the last eight years. When the Evening Press was still being published, Dublin was believed to be the last city in the English speaking world with two evening newspapers. London has had only one since the demise of the Evening News, while about seven evening newspapers have folded in Britain in the past two years.
In Dublin the story has not been very different. The Evening Herald had a circulation of 115,514 in June 1988. The Evening Press had 117,441 sales at the same time. Circulation of both newspapers fell steadily since then as Dublin appeared to follow the pattern of other major cities.
The Herald's circulation continued to fall throughout the 1990s, until it reached 90,348 for the months July to December 1994, the last period it faced competition from the Evening Press. The Evening Press had fallen to 52,590.
The new Evening News has some advantages over the Herald: it has colour throughout, which the Evening Herald does not. This allows it to attract advertising that its circulation might not otherwise justify. It is a much cheaper operation, with a staff of 60 and few overheads.
Being printed outside Dublin is not necessarily as illogical as it might at first appear: it gives it access to the suburban ring with out having to fight city centre traffic. Getting papers into the city centre, however, is more difficult than for the Herald, which is printed there.
If the new paper attracts classified advertising it could spell early evidence of success, as the classified section was the Evening Press's last area of strength.
The classified market is unsophisticated, relying on a belief that the paper is being read by people wanting to buy a car, lawn mower or other items. However, while the Evening Herald increased its advertising massively, its classified sections hardly expanded at all, which advertising industry sources believe could indicate that there is little left to be picked up.
Yesterday the Evening News appeared with 48 tabloid pages at 60p. The Evening Herald had 64 pages at 65p. Last week the editor of the Evening Herald, Mr Paul Drury, said his newspaper would fight the new competition with its coverage and content.
However, yesterday, as a sign of things to come, the Herald appeared on the streets much earlier than usual and had a competition on page one.