While never expected to be a big seller in its first year, Dublin Evening sales sometimes came in as low as 8,000 - a long way from the 25,000 target, writes Emmet Oliver.

In one of those bittersweet ironies that always seem to occur when businesses go bust, the Dublin Evening newspaper (formerly the Dublin Daily) was accepting In Memoriam notices in last Tuesday's final edition.

Maybe the shareholders should have phoned up and booked some space for a death notice instead.

It might have read: "Dublin Evening (nee Dublin Daily) of 18 Fairview, Dublin 3, deeply regretted by the Archant Group, Mr P Taggart, Dublin GAA players and small group of readers, died peacefully in the loving care of journalists and advertising staff yesterday. Removal to liquidator's office to follow."

Understandably, the staff and management of the paper were reflecting on more painful issues this week, like how to pay the mortgage for the rest of the summer.

Editor Mr Liam Hayes earlier this week thanked staff for their contribution.

Despite the paper's demise, there is no doubt it was a well-produced product that livened up the market for a time.

By injecting some competition, however fleeting, to the evening market in particular, it probably forced the Evening Herald to up its game.

The shock and devastation among staff was obvious earlier this week and some of the paper's management remained too upset yesterday to discuss the reasons for the paper's failure.

It is hard to believe the paper's management once compared the paper to the Daily Mail, the Boston Herald and a number of Scandinavian papers.

Managing director Mr Colm Grealy was full of wide-eyed enthusiasm back in February. "Dublin is one of the few cities worldwide without its own newspaper," he said.

Today, Dublin is once again without its own paper and the phones at the paper's Fairview office were permanently engaged.

The suddenness of the closure announcement was obvious in the paper's final edition, with the paper's film critic promising to review the new John Malkovich movie the next day.

Along with other journalists at the paper, he probably read comments in last Sunday's papers from Paschal Taggart in which he said he remained upbeat about the paper's future in the evening market.

However, behind the scenes, things were far from upbeat.

According to shareholders, since a board meeting in May, English regional group Archant had been expressing unhappiness with the paper's performance.

While Archant never expected the paper to be a big seller in its first year, sales sometimes came in as low as 8,000 - a long way from the target for the first year of 25,000.

In a sense, low sales hold the key to the paper's demise. "This is not meant to be glib, but the paper simply did not sell enough copies," said one shareholder yesterday.

Advertising was less of a problem, management claims, with targets regularly exceeded in the first three months of trading.

However, returns were tiny compared to its main rival, the Evening Herald, and the paper is believed to have burned about €4.5 million since its launch.

About 100,000 of this went on a controversial deal with Dublin GAA players, arranged through Dublin manager Tommy Lyons. A deal was also done with the Leinster rugby team for about €50,000.

The two investments, with the help of hindsight admittedly, did not pay off entirely, with Dublin losing to Laois and then Armagh in the All-Ireland Championships and Leinster failing to make the final of the Heineken Cup.

While the paper's sponsorship deals were taking a hammering on the field, the paper was in serious trouble off it.

In the past few weeks, Mr Taggart, who was previously involved with Ireland on Sunday, attempted to get agreement on a new fund-raising round.

The proposed rights issue was scheduled to bring in about €1.5 million.

It is hard to say when the next fund-raising would have been, but there is little doubt there would have been more.

While Mr Taggart was prepared to put up some cash, others were less enthusiastic and the reluctance of Archant (holding more than 20 per cent of the equity) seems to have been a killer blow.

The Irish Times has learned that Mr Anthony Dinan, chief executive of Thomas Crosbie Holdings (the ultimate owner of the Examiner), was approached about his company putting up some cash.

Not surprisingly, the Cork-based company wanted to concentrate on its own daily title.

Independent News & Media (IN&M) is also believed to have been approached, although with the Evening Herald the most immediate beneficiary of Dublin Evening's closure, it is not surprising that IN&M declined to put its hands in its pockets.

The failure to agree the fund- raising essentially made continued trading impossible.

Mr Taggart had come up with 400,000-500,000, and he needed a big player to at least match this.

However, the low sales made it highly unlikely anyone was going to invest more.

While the title may soon become available for purchase via a liquidator's sale, few publishers are queuing up to enter the evening market, which is in a worldwide decline.

The Dublin Evening's main problem may have been its lack of identity.

The decision to become an evening paper, announced in May, caused serious internal tensions, with sales and marketing manager Mr Frank Hannigan leaving soon after.

Some shareholders believed the paper should stick to its original plan - to operate at the top end of the tabloid market and to target younger mobile readers with life-style features such as a social column by Ms Robin O'Reilly - a daughter-in-law of IN&M's chairman, Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

However, the key shareholders supporting the evening option appear to have won out and the paper became Dublin Evening.

Previously, the paper issued independent research showing "unprompted spontaneous awareness" of Dublin Daily at 41 per cent with more than 32 per cent of Dublin residents having read it at least once in the first five weeks since launch.

However, the advertisers remain unmoved and, on certain days, the number of ads could almost be counted on one hand.

According to figures from the Institute of Advertising Practitioners Ireland, the paper took in € 887,975 in May, € 927,380 in April and € 875,625 in March.

These figures, based on official rate cards, show how difficult the paper's financial position had become.

When compared to the 4.1 million of ad revenue taken in by the Evening Herald in May (again based on published rate cards), one gets a sense of the gap between the new paper and its main rival.

Many of the managers and shareholders in Dublin Evening believe that gap would have been filled - at least partially - in time, but ultimately they could not find anyone with enough spare change to let them test their thesis.