The New Day: First look at new 'upbeat' national newspaper from Trinity Mirror

The publisher of the Daily Mirror is to launch a new "upbeat" and "optimistic" UK national daily newspaper, entitled The New Day, from 29 February. Calling it the "first standalone national daily newspaper for 30 years", media giant Trinity Mirror has said it hoped the title would halt the decline in newspaper readership.

The new tabloid-style paper, to be priced at 50p after initial free and discounted rates, is to be published Monday to Friday with each 40-page edition covering news and topical content with "a modern style and tone". Unlike the left-leaning 'working-class' Daily Mirror, Trinity Mirror said the new title would politically neutral.

Simon Fox, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said: "Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years, but we believe a large number of them can be tempted back with the right product. Revitalising print is a core part of our strategy in parallel with digital transformation, and there doesn't have to be a choice between the two – newspapers can live in the digital age if they have been designed to offer something different."

The first edition of The New Day is to be published just weeks before the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers put out their final print editions, on 26 March and 20 March respectively. Owner Evgeny Lebedev said the titles, which faced declining circulation, would continue as an online-only publications.

Trinity Mirror stressed that The New Day would not be a sister title or "light" version of its flagship, the Daily Mirror. The company said the new title, carrying a turquoise masthead, would be "an entirely new newspaper". It is to be available at 40,000 retailers for free on the launch day, with a two-week trial price of 25p thereafter before rising to its set price of 50p. There will be no online site, the company added.

Its editor, Alison Phillips, said: "There are many people who aren't currently buying a newspaper, not because they have fallen out of love with newspapers as a format, but because what is currently available on the news stand is not meeting their needs. This paper has been created as a result of customer insight and is the first newspaper designed for people's modern lifestyles."