Kenya’s largest free newspaper People Daily has closed its weekend edition, People Daily Wikendi (PD Wikendi). The Mediamax-owned newspaper published their last weekend edition on June 9, sending their weekend readers to blackout this weekend.
The move has been linked to cost reduction as the company struggles to attract advertisers in the weekend edition which has been running dry of ads. According to sources privy to the move, advertisers have been shunning the weekend edition due to circulation challenges.
PD Wikendi has been facing circulation challenges on Saturday, being a non-working day for most organisations in Kenya, including government. Its distributors would have huge returns on Saturdays or were often forced to distribute the paper to anyone in sight, at times giving out two or more newspapers to one person.
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PD Wikendi was launched in December 2016 as an entertainment paper a year after scrapping weekend editions were scrapped as part of a restructuring that saw it retrench over 50 staff members including some of its top journalists.
The fate of journalists who were dedicated to the weekend edition still remains unknown. However, word going round is that they will be redeployed to the main paper.
The weekend edition will be published online as a digital edition, leaving People Daily as a work-week newspaper.
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