Lloyd’s List to end print, go online-only

The print version of Lloyd's List, the 279-year-old shipping industry bible, is the latest casualty of rising publication costs and the proliferation of the internet.

Lloyd's announced on Wednesday that its presses will stop rolling on 20 December, as it becomes an online-only publication.

Informa, which has published the London-based Lloyd's List since 1998, said the move was in response to the demands of its audience.

Only a tiny minority read the daily print version, it said on Wednesday.

Lloyd's List editor Richard Meade echoed this view, saying, "We're a 300-year-old newspaper and shipping is a fairly conservative industry so you wear that weight and go online-only with some trepidation.

''(But) the overwhelming majority of our customers choose the capabilities of digital over print. We only have 25 print-only subscribers.''

He further said, ''The digital approach offers new avenues and opportunities to innovate an up-to-the-minute service that offers in-depth news and information on every aspect of shipping.''

The title was first printed in 1734 by Edward Lloyd, a coffee house owner serving the City of London's burgeoning merchant and insurance communities in Lombard Street.

A forerunner newsletter, Lloyd's News, dates back as far as 1696, according to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. It holds the earliest surviving copy of Lloyd's List, from 1741.

Today the Lloyd's List website has 16,624 paying online subscribers.

In common with other business-to-business publishers, Informa has shifted its publications to the web in recent years and has trimmed staff. Its new chief executive, Lord Carter, has a background in digital media with the cable company NTL and wrote the Digital Britain report for Gordon Brown's government.