News on Sunday

A serious tabloid left wing newspaper that launched with the slogan "No tits but a lot of balls" was perhaps destined to fail.

That was the story of the News on Sunday,portrayed on BBC 4 last night.

Funded by trade unions,local authority pensio funds and a certain Owen Oyster,it founders had identified a gap in the market in mid 80's Britain where Thatcherism was riding on the crest of a wave.

The paper proved that ideology and business don't always mix.Management by committee,recruiting idealistic rather than experienced journalists, and locating in Manchester were some of the more serious mistakes the paper made.

John Pilger,in editorial in chief resigned weeks before its launch in April 87,over the style of the paper in its dummy additions.

Its headline on launch day was th story of a Brazilian teenager selling his kidney,and its content went downhill from that point.

Needing to sell 800k copies it sold 500k on its first day and 200K after a month.
It was kept alive during the May only because its cloure during the general election would have serious dented the Labour party.As it was it went into receivership on the 15th June