The free daily business newspaper City AM has announced it will return to print in September after ceasing its print circulation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The paper intends to return to print distribution on Monday 7 September, a few days after it marks its 15th anniversary.
City AM announced the temporary suspension of its print, digital edition and magazine on March 20, furloughing most of its team and retaining just 14 full-time journalists to work on the website to produce news stories.
At the time MD and founder Lawson Muncaster said the paper would not be making redundancies with workers instead taking a salary cut to be ‘ready for when we return as a collective’.
Staff are expected to return to work over the summer, with the paper being put together remotely at first. City AM Magazine is expected to return in the autumn.
Editor of City AM Christian May tweeted the good news this morning, “CityAM will return to print on Monday 7 September, just days after the paper’s 15th birthday. Can’t wait to be back with a full team. Thank you for all the support.”
City AM retained staff to write for its news website which has seen – like much of the news media – online traffic thrive during the lockdown.
The business publication reported a more than 70 per cent year-on-year uplift in traffic following its decision to stop printing. Unique users doubled in March to over three million a month and newsletter subscribers rose by 12,500.
But commuter papers which chose not to cease print circulation during the pandemic have experienced a slump in circulation figures, it was announced earlier this week. Circulation of the Metro has been reduced by 70 per cent to just shy of 400,000 and the Evening Standard by 40 per cent.
