Shock news that the News of the World is to close on Sunday after the phone hacking scandal has sparked rumours of a swift online and print replacement, as a mystery buyer snaps up the domain name for ‘TheSunOnSunday.co.uk’.
The registration of the online domain name TheSunOnSunday.co.uk occurred on Tuesday, two days before News of the World’s collapse was announced. However, the buyer of the domain remains unknown.
It was registered two days ago by a web design company called Mediaspring.
UPDATE: Nominet’s Whois records were updated on 8 July to show that the domains are in fact now owned by News International.
The BBC reported last night that The Sun, the popular sister paper of the NOTW would be published seven days a week.
Speaking to The Press Association, Daisy Dunlop, a spokeswoman for News International, the parent company for News of the World and The Sun, denied rumors of The Sun’s expansion. “It’s not true at the moment,” she said.
However, before the scandal News International had already announced plans to move to seven-day working across four titles- the Sun, News of the World, the Times and Sunday Times.
At the end of last month Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, said that the company wanted to implement “editorial integration” across its daily and Sunday titles.
She had said: “We will take a comprehensive look at where there is common ground across our titles and where we should remain unique. Where there is common ground we will find ways of implementing efficiencies to editorial systems and processes and, where appropriate, we will find ways of introducing seven day working.”
It is understood that plans were being drawn up to first integrate the sports and business sections of the Times and Sunday Times.
The Sunday Sun is an existing newspaper in Newcastle, owned by News International’s rival Trinity Mirror. Rupert Murdoch tried to buy the title in the 1970s. However, the Sun on Sunday, is a title that is available to use.
News of the World’s shuttering came while the newspaper was mired in a phone hacking scandal that sparked a police investigation and prompted advertisers to abandon the newspaper and a prominent veterans group to cut off ties with it.
News International chairman James Murdoch said: “Having consulted senior colleagues, I have decided that we must take further decisive action with respect to the paper.” The decision follows the continuing controversy over allegations of phone hacking at the tabloid paper.
He said that the good things the News of the World has done “have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong”, adding: “Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company. The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself.”
News International has not yet confirmed how it will reimburse the subscribers to its website – which is currently behind a paywall – and its iPad app.
Ford was the first advertiser to announce it was to pull advertising from Sunday’s News of the World, following fresh allegations that News of the World journalists hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Many other advertisers followed suit, saying they would suspend advertising with the paper until police investigations into the hacking allegations had been completed.
The News of the World will print its last edition this Sunday, without any advertising. News International says all sale proceeds will go to charity.
