It's been several years since my local newsagent scrapped his home delivery service. A lack of willing and reliable pensioners/school kids to do the legwork was part of the reason, combined with a dwindling number of residents who actually wanted a paper every day meant the service quite simply didn't pay for itself.

I'm sure this pattern has been repeated up and down the country, so it's interesting to see what newspaper publishers are offering as an alternative. My dad, for example, subscribes to the Telegraph and receives vouchers that he can exchange for the paper at pretty much any retailer that sells it. Such subs offers can be good value for readers who still want the physical newspaper and for those, like my dad, who aren't internet-enabled.

There's a flurry of subs activity at present, no doubt spurred by the alarming decline in newspaper circulations overall. Last week a polite young man phoned up to offer me a subs package for the aforementioned Telegraph that represented a 60% saving on the seven-day cover price. This is a much better deal than the one currently available on the paper's website.

I'm also in receipt of an offer from The Times with an even more tempting 65% discount (but only for 12 weeks), thereafter reverting to 50% off. The Times is also running its masthead collecting promo again, trying to tempt readers into becoming regular purchasers with the carrot of £25 of M&S vouchers if three weeks' worth of mastheads are submitted. That can involve a lot of time rummaging in the recycling bins, let me tell you. I guess most people won't be so bloody minded in their attempts to extract £25 off Rupert Murdoch for zero outlay.

Meanwhile, the back page of Saturday's Guardian carried a full page ad for the subs package they're pushing, with not-quite-so-generous subscriber packages where the discounts vary from 20% to 33%.

But the offer that has most caught my eye, perhaps because it speaks directly to my inner sloth, comes from a title in the News International stable that's offering something genuinely different. Sign up for the News of the World's subs offer and they will deliver the paper to your home, by courier, by 7am on a Sunday morning. If they fail you get your money back. There's a teaser offer that involves a four-week trial where delivery is free and you just pay for the paper, thereafter it's a 50p premium on the cover price of £1. I think that's an incredible deal, albeit one that's only available within the M25 at present.

The accompanying promo ad includes some fleeting footage of Newsprinters, which made me wonder about all the other weekend papers now printed by NI, and whether perhaps this delivery offering might be something that ends up being extended to more of them.