Trinity Mirror abandons circulation war with its arch-rival News Corp

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The tabloid newspaper The Mirror is to aim a new £25m editorial and marketing campaign at existing readers, ending decades of fierce rivalry when its strategy was to try and poach readers from The Sun.

Trinity Mirror, presenting the results of a strategy review of its UK nationals, also announced that it will combine its national advertising sales operation with that of The Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph titles owned by Hollinger. The national sales teams of both companies will be transferred to a joint venture called Apollo Sales.

The historic battle for readers with The Sun, The Mirror's main rival in the "red top" market, was pointless, Trinity Mirror said, as very few people changed reading habits in the long run. Instead the company's flagship titles will be relaunched editorially in the next few months to appeal more to existing readers. Promotion will be aimed at getting current readers to buy the paper more frequently and to attract young consumers.

Philip Graf, the chief executive, said: "Relatively few readers switch from one newspaper to another. People have an affinity to their paper. What we need to do is communicate more clearly with existing readers and move people who buy the paper once or twice a week to three or four times a week."

Trinity Mirror, reporting full-year results, highlighted research which showed that, of the 21 million buyers of red tops, just 0.6 million switch their main title long term. The company said its efforts had been wrongly directed at those 0.6 million consumers.

"Getting people to buy your newspaper more often is a better idea than trying to nick other peoples' readers. There is a different set of values between Sun and Mirror readers. We are in the same part of the market but not fighting over the same readers," he said.

The concept was to "deep-mine" existing readers, by giving them a better product and cementing the relationship with them by communicating more effectively what the paper stands for, he said.

The Mirror has already changed editorial strategy to a more serious news agenda since the 11 September terrorist attacks.

Trinity Mirror's pre-tax profits edged up just 0.9 per cent to £155.5m for 2001 as the severe general advertising downturn hit earnings. But cost savings coming through from the 1999 merger that formed the company were ahead of expectations and it delivered a slightly improved advertising picture. Its shares closed up 3 per cent at 423.5p.

Advertising was down 17.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year but the company suggested that the first quarter of 2002 would be 13 per cent lower than the period in 2001.