The final daily print edition of London’s Evening Standard has landed on the capital’s streets ahead of it relaunching next week as a weekly title.
The newspaper, which has previously been circulated free of charge at the capital’s Underground stations from Monday to Friday, relaunches next Thursday September 26 with its new weekly publication The London Standard.
The publication’s editor-in-chief, Dylan Jones, who joined the title in June last year, bid farewell to the paper’s last daily print edition in a piece published on page three and said that he looked forward to relaunching it as an “end-of-the-week treat”.
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Mr Jones said in an op-ed that it will continue to be available at the capital’s Underground stations, and added: “We will look and feel the same, although with a slightly different name The London Standard and many, many more pages. We think you’ll like the change. We certainly hope so.”
He pledged the new look will be “an upmarket celebration of the city in all its glory” and will be “delivering quality at scale for a culturally savvy, desirable audience – you”.
In addition, he said that there will be more quality in the title including “sharp opinion, analysis, interviews, deeply researched features, scoops and the strong record in campaigning that is now part of its DNA”.
“Every page will have energy. This is an end-of-the-week treat, with features you come back to on Saturday and Sunday,” he wrote.
He signed off saying: “We sincerely hope you will join us on the continuation of our 200-year-old journey and we look forward to seeing you next Thursday, for the latest development of The London Standard.”
On the front page of the last daily issue was an interview with the Transport Secretary Louise Haigh about tackling train unions, while other pages were devoted to news stories.
In May, the newspaper told staff about the changes, saying it is making “substantial losses” with its current operation, which has prompted the need for a change of direction.
The Evening Standard is owned by Evgeny Lebedev, who is also a shareholder in The Independent as well as a member of the House of Lords and the son of Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev.