Can you still buy printed copies of tomorrow's newspapers the night before?

[infobleep]

Are there any newspaper stands in London or other cities still selling tomorrow's newspapers the night before?

I use to occasionally buy one outside London Victoria railway station.

 

[Jimini]

It used to be a company called Newsflash that delivered the early copies, but they went bust in 2017.

These days there’s a very small amount of early copy put out through Smiths News and Menzies Distribution, but that would be mainly 24hr garages etc. rather than the old west end / railway station setup.

 

[Gloster]

Some of the papers sold at stations were brought along with those being loaded on to the News trains and dumped on a pallet or board. I never saw anybody actually selling them: you just slung the money in an old tin and picked one up. There was usually plenty of people about so someone would have shouted if you picked up a big pile, but one or two… I wonder what happened to the money that did get put in the tin and if the papers were just uncounted copies.

 

[Busaholic]

Some of the papers sold at stations were brought along with those being loaded on to the News trains and dumped on a pallet or board. I never saw anybody actually selling them: you just slung the money in an old tin and picked one up. There was usually plenty of people about so someone would have shouted if you picked up a big pile, but one or two… I wonder what happened to the money that did get put in the tin and if the papers were just uncounted copies.

The news stand outside Kings Cross station was manned, with a good selection of magazines to add to the first edition newspapers. Used it a lot in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

[Trackman]

I used to get the Sunday papers at Euston at 7pm on a Saturday.
They used to set up shop just in front of the departures board - did a roaring trade.
Seen them outside tube stations too.
I suppose these days the demand for newspapers, especially early ones, is not as great as it once was.

 

[Jimini]

I used to get the Sunday papers at Euston at 7pm on a Saturday.
They used to set up shop just in front of the departures board - did a roaring trade.
Seen them outside tube stations too.
I suppose these days the demand for newspapers, especially early ones, is not as great as it once was.

Indeed. Plus with advances in cold set printing tech, they don’t need to be off stone / on press as early as a couple of decades ago.

Also Friday night / Saturday night football matches these days means that on a “footy schedule”, the off stone time is typically around 2230 to capture the match result and report, compared to 2030 on a non- footy schedule. So you’re not getting good copy until around 2300, and that’s when you need to focus on the far flung depots (think HGV Broxbourne to Redruth, for example).