Guardian group launches price discount initiative

Guardian News & Media (GNM) is launching a daily subscription service for The Guardian and The Observer for the first time. The publisher is offering readers a discount of up to 33% on the cover price.

Guardian%20subscriberGuardian News & Media (GNM) is launching a daily subscription service for The Guardian and The Observer for the first time. The publisher is offering readers a discount of up to 33% on the cover price.

It is the publisher’s first major effort to push newspaper sales through discounting. It has previously only used discount strategies to attract student readers.

The initiative aims to encourage existing readers to become regular purchasers of both papers. The service will be launched on January 17, when readers will be directed to the Guardian.co.uk site to subscribe and receive a book of vouchers.

Readers taking out a weekend subscription will get a 20% discount off the cover price, while those taking out a six day subscription will receive 25% off. A full seven-day subscription gives the reader a 33% discount.

GNM marketing director Marc Sands says: “We’ve very rarely discounted before – we’ve never really got involved in price wars. But cover prices of papers have gone up and we wanted to reward our existing readers.”

The subscription service will be marketed within The Guardian and The Observer papers and the websites. It follows similar discount subscription drives made by The Daily Telegraph and The Times.

The launch comes just days after the Audit Bureau of Circulation released figures showing The Guardian fell by 3.99% to 345,884 year on year, while The Observer fell 4.34% to 436,060. The market as a whole has also fallen.