Administrators axe Sportman’s Sunday edition to save money

Beleaguered newspaper The Sportsman is axing its Sunday edition as part of a string of cost-cutting measures. The move comes a month after it was placed in administration.

It is not clear when the newspaper will cease to be printed but the move is expected soon. Sources close to the paper deny that the Sunday edition had been doing badly and say that axing it is just one of “thousands of options” being considered by the newspaper’s management.

One insider says: “Sunday is a poor racing day, and we could damage the Racing Post’s Sunday sales if we axed our Sunday edition and printed a racing card for Sunday’s races in with the Saturday paper.”

The cover price of the Monday to Friday editions is &£1, but at weekends the cost is &£1.20 compared with the Racing Post’s weekend cover price of &£1.50.

Since Sports Betting Media Ltd, the publisher of The Sportsman, was placed in administration, it has appointed Robin Holton as managing director. He replaces Mark Maydon, who was covering the role on an interim basis.

A statement from UHY Hacker Young, the newspaper’s administrators, says that five positions in the newspaper’s editorial and administration departments have been made redundant.

The statement, released on Tuesday, claims that negotiations over the sale and its assets “will be concluded within the next seven to ten working days”. It adds that a purchaser is committed to investing a “substantial sum” of working capital.