Paper Monitor
12:23 UK time, Monday, 27 February 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
"The king is dead. Long live the queen," pronounces former news editor and chief reporter of the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck, reviewing the first edition of the Sun on Sunday .
Most reviewers conclude that Rupert Murdoch's new offering, launched to fill the gap left by the News of the World, held few surprises, with some describing it as "timid" or "limp".
For Thurlbeck, while the first edition felt a bit like a "damp squib", he is in no doubt that a "new tabloid era" has dawned. While he says there were no investigation or revelations to speak of, "this is surely the type of tabloid paper we will be getting post Leveson, so in that respect it is setting the agenda other tabloids will follow".
Assessing a number of the human interest stories, he concludes that the title appears to be aimed squarely at the female market. "A total of 13 pages devoted to the staple fare of most women's magazines. The Sun is leaving us in no doubt about its Sunday identity," he continues.
For Stephen Glover, writing in the Independent, the paper is not only but also better behaved than its weekday and Saturday sister. But the pay-off for not feeling "slightly grubby" to be caught reading the new title, is the fact that it's just a bit boring.
The Financial Times's Matthew Engel concurs, . It points out that Sundays produced by "weary daily hacks for whom it is just another shift" do not make for a successful product. But it's Engel's description of the "page-3" girl that really stands out:
The biggest surprise for readers of either the weekday Sun or the old Sunday "Screws" will be Page 3, which does indeed feature an attractive woman wearing no bra. But she looks horrified, and her arms are coyly covering her breasts, as though the photographer had barged into her dressing room at the wrong moment.
For media consultant Peter Sands, that really made a splash - in more ways than one:
The most graphic headline of the day is without doubt 'I heard splash ... it was Amanda's blood hitting floor'. Woah. Good headlines should build pictures ... but I wasn't quite ready for this one.
The 
