THE coronavirus crisis is changing everything. Scotland is in lockdown. Businesses are going bust. Your life has changed completely in the space of a couple of weeks.
But what you might not yet have realised is the impact lockdown is having on your newspaper.
Across Scotland, more than 500 shops have closed since last Monday. At the same time, buying habits are changing. People are more reluctant to leave the house to go and pick up their newspaper.
We’ve had many messages from some of our older readers who are in self-isolation and simply don’t want to risk their lives to go out and buy a newspaper. And of course, we completely understand.
But all this adds up to a huge impact on The National. Newspaper sales across the UK are down around 30% since lockdown began last week. It’s unclear whether they’ve now bottomed out at that level, or whether they’ll continue to fall.
At the same time, businesses are using innovative digital technology to make sure their adverts are placed next to coronavirus content online. Which means that, as a trusted news website, while our traffic has never been higher, the money we make from online advertising is falling.
Taken together, the situation poses a deadly threat to our paper’s future.
We’re asking everybody in the Yes movement to consider taking out a digital subscription to the paper to help us get through this.
On the positive side, we’ve add 500 new digital subscribers since the crisis began. But that’s not enough to make up for our drop in sales.
Please sign up to our Premium Plus package for just £2 for the first two months – and spread the word.
When all this is over, we still have indyref2 to win ...
Scotland is in lockdown. Shops are closing and newspaper sales are falling fast. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of The National is at stake. Please consider supporting us through this with a digital subscription from just £2 for 2 months by following this link: www.thenational.scot/subscribe. Thanks – and stay safe.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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