Evening Standard to launch home delivery service in response to coronavirus

The Evening Standard is set to launch a home delivery service in response to the “changed dynamics of where our readers now are” amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to CEO Mike Soutar.

Newspapers will be delivered to people living in neighbourhoods in zone one, two or three on Transport for London’s map of the city.

Mr Soutar said in a message to staff that “in common with almost our entire office” a large number of workers in London are staying at home, meaning that the centre of the city has been “much quieter than normal”.

He added: “Given the changed dynamics of where our readers now are, we have been working hard on a unique service for Londoners which will allow the Standard to still reach the commuters who normally would have been picking up their copies in zone one but who are now working from home.

“As well as up-weighting the volumes of copies into essential retailers, we will be launching a unique new home delivery service this Monday.

“For the first time in its history the Evening Standard will be distributed directly to people’s houses in 26 neighbourhoods in zone two and three.

“From Hampstead to Bethnal Green, Brixton to Hammersmith, Swiss Cottage to Greenwich, our vans and delivery teams will home deliver hundreds of thousands of copies every single day.”

Daily distribution of the free newspaper has been “achieving a four-day average of 642,000 copies per day in challenging circumstances”, he said.

Mr Soutar added that going forward “we will be targeting 500,000 copies per day which we believe is an appropriate scale in the circumstances and is still considerably larger than anything serving London’s readers”.

“In the context of currently lower advertising volumes, it makes good economic sense too.”

There will also be more copies of the newspaper put into suburban supermarkets where there has been a “notable” increase in people picking it up, he added.