Tonight:
9°c
"Would you like to buy a Sun? Only 20p. Go on, you know you do." I politely decline and the smiling vendor quickly moves on to ask another passer-by who, I note, also waves her away.
In fact, I do not see her sell one copy in the 15 minutes I keep watch and wonder once again why the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch's News International (NI), has decided to employ 100 vendors on London's streets in order to sell Britain's largest-selling daily paper.
I know The Sun's circulation has been in steady decline in recent years but it's still a good way off the three million mark that appears to represent a psychological barrier, at least in the minds of many commentators and, quite plausibly, in Murdoch's mind, too.
Facts first: The Sun sold an average of 3,158,045 copies a day in August. That was two per cent fewer than in the same month a year ago but substantially better than in either December last year or this March, when it was a mere 31,000 away from slipping below three million.
In other words, even before NI cut its cover price in the South East from 35p to 20p at the beginning of this month, it was enjoying something of a sales recovery.
So why, given signs of that renewed health, sacrifice millions of pounds in lost sales revenue with a price cut, and also waste thousands more employing street vendors to sell, at best, a couple of hundred extra copies? Though I understand the timing of the cut was not linked to the street-selling initiative, both moves reveal NI's determination to create a new sense of upward momentum at a paper that has appeared to be in terminal, if gradual, decline.
I am told that the street sales are merely an experiment to test a theory that people will buy papers if they are made more easily available, a lesson learned from the distribution of free titles.
There is anecdotal evidence that the overall newspaper sales decline is linked to the closure of newsagents. They have been replaced by convenience stores but they are not always, in spite of their name, conveniently located and, of course, they do not offer home deliveries.
So perhaps we shouldn't place too much emphasis on Sun street vending. And yet, for all the denials of it smacking of desperation, it does represent a growing unease at NI. It must be seen in the context of unprecedented difficulties facing all its major titles.
Look at The Sunday Times circulation, down more than 12 per cent on a year ago. Both The Times and the News of the World have also lost more than five per cent of their sales over 12 months.
There may be a belief at NI that The Sunday Times has begun to find its feet again after the plunge that followed its cover price rise to £2 in September last year. But a single-month increase cannot conceal the continuing downward trend. Now, with the company having put up the price of The Times to 70p, it is likely to slip backwards, too.
How galling it must be for the editors of the two serious papers to struggle with price rises as The Sun gets the fillip of a cut in their own South Eastern heartland.
It is sobering to reflect that Murdoch's move to Wapping in 1986 was seen as a triumph, restoring both his fortunes and those of his papers. Now, as his lieutenants hunt for new headquarters in more salubrious surroundings, the future looks altogether less assured for newsprint..
