Outgoing Observer editor Roger Alton launches a Parthian shot in today's MediaGuardian section - which has been curated by another long serving Sunday editor, Andrew Neil. The quality Sunday market is in rude health, Alton notes, but can it stay that way?
One suggestion from Alton is a free Sunday title - or alternatively go the other way and make it part of a deluxe, premium-priced package:
"... Having tried to negotiate central London last weekend, along with millions of others, I am amazed no one has yet tried a Sunday freesheet, focusing on retail advertising, to capture the huge shopping/tourism/sports fan audience that barrels through the city at weekends.
"I have a memo from a senior colleague more than a decade ago arguing for an Obs Lite, in tandem with the main paper: very cheap, if not free, distributed through alternative channels, to coffee shops, pubs, clubs even. Would it have worked? Well, the ad rates would have been a problem, as would squaring the circulation numbers; but maybe not insuperable.
"Should we have tried it? Almost certainly: this was years before the quality press tabloid revolution. Could something similar happen now, taking the ultra compact Sindy route? Possibly, but not at £1.80.
"Others argue the opposite: that Sunday newspapers are hideously under-priced, less than a Starbucks latte. Should they become a luxury brand? Just imagine: the Sunday paper delivered to your home in an agreeable non-plastic bag with a pint of milk and some eggs. The perfect breakfast package - and all for just a fiver. Gibberish, or a vision for the future? Who knows?"
Alton also tackles the thorny issue of how a Sunday title can fit into a seven day print and online operation - something all the quality national newspaper publishing groups are trying to sort out right now:
"Observer content is accessed through Guardian Unlimited. Even as powerful a figure as the Sunday Times's editor John Witherow is known to resent the fact that his paper has no separate web brand; and, of course, the Telegraph Group's new strategy is famously centred on multi-platform content accessed through Telegraph.co.uk.
"There are two questions here: first, is it possible to run a thriving website that produces most of its content on a weekly basis. Answer: yes, but it won't make you rich. Second, can a publisher that runs two titles - one daily, one weekly - nurture both brands online. Answer: probably not. Besides, why would it want to?
"It is perfectly possible to run a website where most new content appears weekly. You need an exciting front page and some top-notch bloggers to engage with readers between your main press days. The Economist, the Spectator and Time magazine all make this work. Good content can drive web traffic for weeks at a time, months even. So the biggest obstacle to Sunday papers having successful web editions is not their leisurely publishing schedule, it is the fact that they compete for investment with their own daily partners.
"Which brings you to that second question: can you run daily and weekly titles in parallel on the web? A publisher with two newspapers and one pot of money to invest online will naturally concentrate on the title that is more prolific: its daily paper. Why would it then carve out a separate web enclave whose distinguishing feature is that it is updated less often than the rest of the site? It doesn't make commercial sense.
"So there's your answer. Can a weekly publication have a great, dynamic, engaging and successful website? Yes. Can a weekly newspaper that operates as a brand subsidiary of a daily title do the same? Only if money is no object. This may be a problem in time for Sunday papers online. But I still believe that a good Sunday paper will have enough going for it that its brand can survive even without an on-line identity."
