Lloyd's List charts digital course as it leaves print behind Lloyd's List, which has provided shipping news from London since 1734, has decided to abandon print and go fully digital. The world's longest-running business newspaper started as a notice pinned to the wall of a coffee shop in the City of London, offering news and information about the shipping industry. Since then - as wooden sailboats were replaced by supertankers - The List, as it is known in the industry, has evolved from a pamphlet to a range of digital products including a website and apps for smartphones and tablets. "We're still the essential source of international trade shipping information, but now you can get us on your iPad in any coffee shop anywhere in the world at any time of the day," said Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd's List. Informa, the FTSE 250 company that publishes Lloyd's List, said the move to go all digital followed months of research and preparation. A customer survey carried out in June found that 97 per cent of respondents said their preferred way of accessing business information is online. Fewer than 2 per cent of readers now access Lloyd's List solely through its print edition. The publication has more than 16,600 paying subscribers and charges about £1,800 for a single subscription. Lloyd's List is only one of thousands of publications that has had to transform the way it distributes content in recent years as consumers and advertisers have migrated online. Business information groups including Informa, Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer have all spent the last decade grappling with the shift away from print publications and now derive the bulk of their revenues from digital products. Auto Trader, the weekly classifieds magazine that was once the bible for anyone looking to buy or sell a second-hand car in the UK, decided to end its print edition in March. Many popular newspapers such as the Guardian and the Telegraph have struggled with the shift online because of intense competition from rival free services and because digital advertising rates tend to be lower than print ones. By contrast, Lloyd's List is in a "fairly unique and lucky situation," according to Mr Meade, because it owns a large amount of proprietary data and has entrenched itself in the shipping industry.