Just catching up on oldish news by recording here that the Exeter Express & Echo is following the now familiar Northcliffe Media path from daily to weekly publication.
Its last daily issue will be published on 2 September and the first issue of the weekly will appear on 8 September. Marc Astley remains editor.
It follows last month's daily-to-weekly switch by the Torquay Herald Express and the coming switch this month of the Scunthorpe Telegraph.
The Express & Echo had an average daily sale of 17,102 in the second half of last year, the most recent ABC audited figures.
So which Northcliffe daily will be the next to go weekly? There are 14 more titles to choose from, with two selling fewer than 20,000 copies a day - the Gloucestershire Echo (16,380) and the Lincolnshire Echo (17,667).
But, of course, it's not about the circulation figures. The decision will be based on profitability or, more likely, the lack of profitability of each paper. And those bottom-line figures are not publicly available.
So will we see larger-selling titles - possibly in cities where Northcliffe has two dailies, such Plymouth and Bristol - make the switch?
Surely, we aren't going to see the Hull Daily Mail become the Hull Weekly Mail? Was that the real reason for the departure of its editor John Meehan? Answers: probably no in both cases.
Meehan is being replaced by Neil Hodgkinson, editorial director of the CN Group and editor of its Carlisle News & Star. I can't imagine Hodgkinson, a former editor of the Lancashire Evening Post and Yorkshire Evening Post, wanting to edit a weekly.
