Sunday tabloid JV talks shelved

Plans to turn the Sunday People into a new-look tabloid to occupy the gap left by the closing of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World look likely to be shelved after talks to spin the paper into a joint venture ended yesterday.

Owner Trinity Mirror said discussions with investors interested in working with it on the newspaper had concluded without agreement.

The newspaper group had been in talks with a consortium headed by former Sunday Express editor Sue Douglas.

The Sunday People, a celebrity gossip-heavy tabloid founded in 1881, benefited from the closure of rival News of the World at the height of the phone hacking scandal in 2011, although a new Sunday edition of the best-selling Sun daily has eaten into many of those gains.

Trinity Mirror declined to say why the talks failed.