NRC will only be published in the morning from January 3, 2022 for subscribers to the paper edition in Amsterdam and a number of areas outside the Randstad. That definitive editor-in-chief René Moerland completely the Amsterdam newspaper The watchword Tuesday announced that it would move completely to the morning.

Het Parool announced the transition on Tuesday weblog No style was the first to bring the news in the morning. “Delivery is under great pressure,” editor-in-chief Kamilla Leupen noted in a letter to subscribers. “By switching to the morning, we can also deliver in the long term.”

Afternoon distribution has been a loss-making business for some time, also at NRC. Moerland: “In the area where those costs become too high, we tell subscribers that the newspaper is landscape in the morning.” It is not clear when the last NRC Handelsblad will appear in the afternoon, but it is clear, according to Mo, that that delivery is finite. In cases where this has already been done on a trial basis, according to Moerland, reactions have been received with understanding and the number of cancellations is “very small”.

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That despite a high density of subscribers in Amsterdam, it is no longer necessary to set up a distribution network in the afternoon, now that publisher DPG has stopped distributing Het Parool. That investment is not according to Moerland. NRC is part of Mediahuis, which competes with DPG in both Belgium and the Netherlands, but has partnerships in the field of distribution.

“Our growth is enormous, but it is in the weekend and in digital subscribers,” says Moerland. “We change with it.” Last year a record number of subscribers was achieved and NRC is above 300,000. It has a digital subscription. About 100,000 subscribers also have the paper newspaper during the week, of which more than 70,000 in the afternoon. Around 30,000 subscribers were told this Tuesday that NRC was only available in the mornings in their area.

The end of the afternoon newspaper in Amsterdam begins the name Handelsblad, which is only fed in the afternoon in the masthead, disappears from the city where the Algemeen Handelsblad originated in 1828. In 1970 this Amsterdam newspaper merged with the New Rotterdam Newspaper to the NRC Handelsblad. Moerland: “The title of the morning newspaper is indeed NRC. But it’s the same newspaper and our identity doesn’t change.”

According to editor-in-chief Leupen, the decision at Het Parool also has journalistic reasons. “Most readers have already read the news and backgrounds on their smartphones by the end of the afternoon,” she reasons briefly to all subscribers. “We think we can offer you a fresh look at the news in Amsterdam and the rest of the world in the morning.”