Weekly paper to be launched next month

A new weekly newspaper, the Dublin People, is to be launched on October 22nd.

Responding to reports that it is to be a "stalking horse" for a new evening paper to rival the Evening Herald, the publisher, Mr Robin Webb, maintained that an evening newspaper was not "yet" on his agenda.

The Dublin People, which will cost 70p, is to have an initial print-run of 22,000 copies. But Mr Webb says he expects sales to settle at around 10,000 to 12,000 copies for the first few months.

The Evening Herald has been the capital's only evening newspaper since the closure of the Evening Press in 1995. The Evening Herald had average daily sales of 90,349 in 1994, the last full year of competition with the Evening Press. This figure had risen to 110,500 for the period January to June 1999, indicating that the overall market has shrunk since the demise of the Irish Press titles.

The Dublin People is to be produced by Mr Webb's Dublin People Group, which already has four free newspapers in the Dublin area. Mr Webb is also a director of the Kildare Times, a free title based in Naas. With an overall print-run of 210,000 copies weekly, the group is ranked among the State's largest independent printing contracts.

The group has enjoyed steady growth during the last 12 years, as the industry witnessed some spectacular failures including the Dublin Tribune.

Industry sources predicted that, should the Dublin People survive, it could quickly threaten the monopoly of the Evening Herald.