Murdoch's Sun on Sunday faces battle to win back readers

UK: Rupert Murdoch launches his new Sun on Sunday tabloid in Britain this weekend, but faces a battle to win over the readers lost when he shut his scandal-hit News of the World last year.

The 80-year-old media baron announced the new title just a week before publication and is clearly relishing the chance to confound his critics by plunging back into the British weekly tabloid market.

The wily tycoon also threatened to spark a price war by selling it for far less than its current rivals, and gleefully announced on Twitter:

"More good Sun news. We're completely sold out for advertising!" However, overall Sunday newspaper sales have nosedived since the News of the World was shut down in July over the phone-hacking scandal, and the tabloid's successor faces a stiff test in a highly competitive, shrinking market.

The News of the World's June 2011 average sales were 2.67 million and while half of those readers have drifted off to other papers, 1.3 million have simply vanished from the market altogether, industry figures show.

The Sunday tabloid market dropped from sales of seven million in June 2011 to 5.7 million in January, and every national Sunday title saw a month-on-month circulation drop in December.

Roy Greenslade, a former Daily Mirror editor and a 1980s executive on The Sun who is now a journalism lecturer, said The Sun's red-top rivals should beware.

They "face a circulation war against the world's shrewdest newspaper magnate with an unprecedented track record in risking all to turn potential defeat into victory", he wrote in a column for London's Evening Standard.

Murdoch fired his opening salvo on Thursday, announcing that the new title would be available at just half the cost of its rivals.

The News of the World cost one pound ($1.57, 1.18 euros), the same cover price as tabloid rivals the Sunday Mirror and The People, but the new paper this weekend will go on sale for just 50 pence.

The News of the World had been comfortably Britain's biggest-selling weekly -- a position now held by The Mail on Sunday, which shifts 1.9 million copies at a cover price of 1.50.

Murdoch's benchmark for success could be topping that figure, or matching The Sun's average daily circulation of 2.75 million.

The launch announcement last week followed the arrest of a number of Sun journalists on suspicion of bribing public officials. AFP