Some of you may have heard that The Independent newspaper has decided to drop the daily cryptic crossword with effect from the end of October 2026. I believe that the last puzzle will appear on October 31st. Incidentally the day before Fifteensquared’s 20th birthday.
I believe that there are a number of threads buzzing around on social media but I hardly use social media these days.
I’m hoping that this post can serve as a central point of contact where solvers can voice their opinions in the hope that the power-that-be have a change of heart.
Please make your feelings known in the comments below but REMEMBER to keep everything respectful.
This site does not encourage anonymous comments so if you feel you want to comment but don’t want your name associated with your comments, then please email me at the site’s admin email address and I’ll see what I can do.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
kenmac
(admin)
Mike gave me my entry into the world of setters. The Indy gave me my first major outlet and I will forever be grateful. After busy work times I was hoping to get back into the swing, but – sadly – it appears that door is closed. The i reprints older puzzles in any case, so I don’t see why they can’t continue to print newer ones. Anyway, my six-penn’orth.
Skinny
As one of the many setters who was proud to make their national debut in the Independent, and a near-daily solver of the crossword, I sincerely hope this decision is reversed.
Alongside providing a high-quality, distinctive daily cryptic, the Independent has been a vital route for new setters to make their mark. It is a crucial part of the wider ecosystem, and its loss would be felt far more widely than just among the setters and solvers of that particular series.
Amoeba / Weatherman / Tango
That is a shame I hope it’s something that can be reversed.
I know the data is unlikely to be shared but judging from the comments on Guardian puzzles here and the number of comments for the Times and Telegraph on other sites, the Indy appears significantly less popular than those other papers. It is a shame as they were on par in terms of quality with the others and was good to see some fresh setters more frequently.
I am not sure what the business objective is with cryptics (selling or maintaining paper/subscriptions sales, generating clicks etc) but solvers are creatures of habit. I am guilty of that in that I do the Times and Guardian everyday with others done depending on setter and time available. Maybe it’s hard to win people over regardless of crossword quality. The online interface didn’t help either.
Let me know if a petition starts up as I am going to miss my Sunday Filbert solve.
I will really miss my Sunday Filbert, Friday Phi, fortnightly Eccles and all the new setters the Independent has introduced us to (our own PostMark/Stamp not least among them). Perhaps if more people commented on the Independent blogs, it might show how much interest there still is?
This is sad news to hear. I’ve been doing the Indy cryptic daily for over 2 years and it’s become part of my daily routine (usually around mid-morning although sometimes mid-afternoon) and something I look forward to doing each day
I’m hoping that the Indy reverse their decision but I have a horrible feeling that it’s already set in stone. Here’s hoping that if there’s enough attention from the crossword community then the Indy might change their minds
This is such bad news. Mike Hutchinson has done an amazing job in providing new setters with an opportunity to be published nationally. I will be forever grateful for that. This decision will undoubtedly make the cryptic crossword community a poorer place. I sincerely hope that the “powers that be” can reconsider this move.
If anything is going to get bigger in the future AI slop ridden world it’s going to be cryptics. Someone needs to do a Goalhanger and get in early. I’m not a setter but will miss the high quality of the Indy compilers.
I’ll be very sad to see it go, for selfish reasons as well as general enjoyment. I’m another who owes Mike a debt of gratitude for starting me out as a “proper” setter.
It seems the decision is being made on the lack of clicks through to the web page, so perhaps if you’re an Indy dabbler, you could give it another go? I’m not mad on the interface, and I know no-one likes ads, but remember they are often the pipeline via which creators get paid, so if you do enjoy Indy puzzles, give that a thought.
I’ve also seen a couple of people say that they subscribe to The Independent mainly for the crossword. If that’s you, do say so here, please. The more public statements about the crosswords being loved and valued that The Indy can see (here or elsewhere), the better the (perhaps slim?) chance of a reversal of policy.
Spread the word, fellow solvers! And enjoy the next 6 weeks…
A decent quality crossword has been a hallmark of the decent quality press for decades. We all know newspapers are facing a decline in subscription numbers for deadwood copies and, with so much ‘free’ news on the Web, they may not be recouping with online subs what they’ve lost elsewhere. I am disappointed in the Indy’s decision and both the publication itself and the wider crossword world will certainly be the poorer for it. The Indy had a distinctive cruciverbal personality, a very wide range and style of setter and, as others have noted, it has been a gateway publication for many setters who are now more widely established. I also happen to think (though I would say this wouldn’t I) that the quality of Indy puzzles has been extremely high.
I am surprised a paywall/puzzles subscription route was not explored. I have puzzles subs with Times and Telegraph and would have happily taken one out with the Indy.
I’m another who hopes the powers that be will reconsider but rather fear the money men have had their say and they probably don’t do the crosswords anyway!
PostMark/Stamp/Frank/Rowland
As former blogger of the Indy who solved it on paper for as long as it was possible over 35 years, I’m deeply saddened by this, feels like a death in the family. As new setters often used the exposure in the Indy as a springboard for their careers the hopes of new setters will be hit by this too.
The loss of the daily cryptic crossword in the independent will noticeably dilute the intellectual level of the publication. I’ve been an Independent subscriber for many years both in paper and more recently in App format but without the Cryptic crossword I’ll be migrating elsewhere – probably the Guardian.
Whilst a reversal on this decision to axe the cryptic would be ideal I doubt it will happen so if anyone has recommendations for a comparable week’s selection of puzzles I’d be interested to hear your views.
While agreeing this is sad news, I’d like to use this opportunity to ask a question: The i Paper, formerly linked with The Independent, also has a daily cryptic crossword – apparently free though requiring subscription – which as far as I can see hasn’t been covered on this site so far. Could it be considered as a replacement maybe?
I only solved it once, and it seemed good quality, though I can’t really say more
The i has used 4-5 year old Indy puzzles which have been blogged here previously, perhaps they could take the Indy team over.
@Layman #12 – these are paper ‘reprints’ of what had appeared online perhaps a couple of years previously. The setters don’t get paid for these.
Doing a bit of maths here. 6 puzzles per week 52 weeks = 312 puzzles. Paying at £100 each (which they have been for a long time) this equates to a yearly cost for the cryptic only of £31,200, which in newspaper terms, is nothing.
Remember – we also have a variety of puzzles every day, and once a week – Enigmatic Variations, which had avoided the chop at least once before.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s no money at all to keep a loyal solvership happy, and maintain a healthy stable of talented setters.
I have been doing the Independent crossword- initially in the printed newspaper and subsequently in the i- paper (4 years late) since the inception of the slot, having migrated from the Times. For me the range of setters, the regular themes and Ninas and the relaxed humour of many setters makes it the standout daily crossword. I was just nerving myself to submit a crossword to the Independent myself, but I suppose I will have to look elsewhere! I would happily pay a subscription to maintain the Indy puzzle.
Skinny @14: Indy is every day of the year (I once had Christmas Day!) so it’s £36,500 on the material. I don’t know whether Mike is full time as editor – I’ve had messages from him on just about every day of the week inc weekends – but there will be an editorial salary. Then there will be the costs of the web-site management and some admin/typesetting I guess. That said, I agree with your overall view: if a few tens of thousands are of such material importance that the Indy is willing to compromise on a long-standing element of its offering, they must really be in trouble! It may be that more than the crossword is soon to disappear …
Well, that’s a shame – it was the main reason I bothered with a paper at all, and had grown to favour the Indy crosswords (and their later appearances in the i) over the Guardian and Times. I hope they have a change of heart and reinstate it.
My partner and I do The i’s crossword daily – current streak 1585 consecutive days – and since these are reprints from the Indy presumably this decision will impact on The i further down the line.
For my part, these are excellent puzzles. I do the Times a couple of times a week (finish about 70%) and the FT most days (80% completion). In my view the Indy crosswords are of comparable standard and often more enjoyable. This is a most regrettable decision but I don’t suppose there’s much to be done to remedy it.
My thanks to Phi et al for their brilliant puzzles.
I’m another who’s been proud to set puzzles for The Independent as part of a great team made up esteemed old-timers and new blood. I’m especially grateful to Mike for letting me get away with some rather unorthodox grids. It would be a real shame if this distinctive feature of the UK crossword landscape disappeared.
I suspect the Indy has made its mind up, but I really hope The i Paper can take the series on, especially since recycled Indy puzzles (at no extra payment to setters) have helped sell physical copies of the i for many years.
I love the Independent’s cryptic and have seen it be a huge opportunity for setters who deserved that opportunity. Seeing it go away would be a total shame.
I’m very sad to hear this news, especially because only last week I finally mustered up the courage to submit to the Independent as a debut setter. It has played such an important role in the cryptic crossword space and it’s a tragedy to see that go away 🙁
An Indy crossword has been the publication debut for so many excellent setters, and that in itself is just one example of how important it is to the UK crossword landscape. A good number of my favourite setters got their start there, so even if the decision is not reversed I do think the Indy and Mike as crossword editor in particular have earned a place in the cryptic crossword hall of fame… it’s just a shame that the powers that be don’t seem to appreciate what a key part of the newspaper’s identity it is, at least to some of us.
I echo the preceding comments that suggest a ‘straightforward’ (looking outside-in, at any rate) solution might be for the ‘i’ Paper to pick up the baton. Apart from anything else, at some point the Indy reprints will run out and the ‘i’ will (hopefully) recognise that the gap needs to be filled. The ‘i’ is the home of Inquisitor, my very favourite crossword series, and one would hope that a paper with such a prestigious flagship weekly crossword series does understand the significance of a good ‘regular cryptic’ puzzle offering on a daily basis.
So fingers crossed that either the Indy decision gets reversed (seems quite unlikely) or the ‘i’ sees the value in taking over the series in some form.
I’ve done the Indy x-word pretty much every day for 30 years or so in print and online and am very sad. Like several others I’d be happy to pay a sub to an Indy x-word club like that for the Times if that would keep it going. Thanks to all the setters and bloggers who have made the experience so pleasant.
There are not that many places in the world one can reliably go for a high-quality cryptic, and losing one pillar of that in the Indy feels like a great tragedy. I do hope for either a reversal, a migration to the i, or perhaps some other novel way to retain the spirit and community of Indy setters.
This is sad news. I have enjoyed many of the Indy setters and I hope I can find their work elsewhere if this decision is final. I’m another who would pay for a puzzle subscription. That’s what I do with the NY Times just to do its Spelling Bee, my ‘cool down’ after my attempts to solve a variety of cryptics.
I’ve been doing the Indy crossword every day for years and I’ll be genuinely heartbroken if it goes away. I’d be more than happy to chip in a monthly sub for anywhere that picks it up.
And as an amateur setter who was hoping to have a puzzle published there at some point, it feels like such a loss. So many of my favourite setters have started out there.
I must confess that I seldom attempt the Independent cryptic when it first comes out, BUT I’ve been doing it in its dead-tree repeats the i Paper cryptic pretty much every day since it launched and cost just 20p. I’ve progressed from hopeless, via hopeful, to some sort of competent. I love it, subscribe to the newspaper because of it, and dearly hope that it will continue somehow… Perhaps becoming an ‘up-to-date’ cryptic in the i rather than recycled? Whilst retaining sympathy for the Indy solvers, that would be a scenario that I personally could live with, and selfishly speaking even be happier with.
I no longer do the Independent crossword these days as the online interface is truly execrable, unless, that is, as has often happened a friend has a debut crosword that day. I do regularly (though not every day) buy the i and usually enjoy the recycled Indy crosswords. I would willingly pay for a puzzles subscription for the Indy but not with their current solving interface.
Yours somewhat grumpily,
Outraged of Tonbridge Wells.
Pretty horrendous news for setters and solvers – and for the Independent as well, I would think. I don’t hear much about the Indie these days but if it ever came up in conversation the first thing I would say is “it has a surprisingly good crossword, you know” – it’s a seal of quality that makes it present as an online-only broadsheet newspaper rather than a random website. Now it’s chosen to be a random website.
Thanks and commiserations to the crossword editor, the incredible array of setters, and to the higher-ups who kept it going as long as they did, I suppose.
I can only echo the sentiments of the other setters who have posted here and express my sadness that the higher-ups at the Indy have decided to make this decision. I hope that if setters and solvers can work together to cause enough of an uproar, the paper will remember the old newspaper adage ‘Don’t screw around with the crossword!:
We are one couple who have subscribed to the Independent online ever since it stopped printing, with our daily crossword as the major reason to do so. By subscribing we get a reasonable format, to answer someone who asked why we pay. It’s very likely we will stop paying 12.99 a month once the crossword goes, because we have also become annoyed with the tabloidisation of the comment and news in the paper. But it won’t take many of us to do the same to cost the paper more than they save. I guess we’ll have to gird our loins for the Guardian.
I’ve probably been the crossword since the paper started. (I print off the puzzle from the puzzles. independent website.) I’ll be sorry to see it go.
Adding my voice to the chorus lamenting this decision by The Independent. I hope that it can be reconsidered or that another path can be found to save the series. Under Mike’s leadership the Independent has not only produced a stream of reliably excellent puzzles but has also given new setters (like me) a path to publication. The proposed discontinuation would be a great loss not only to the cryptic crossword community but also, I would have thought, to the newspaper itself. A high-quality crossword is a fairly inexpensive badge of quality. As others have noted above, the annual cost of producing and publishing the puzzles might be estimated at around £100,000. That figure is perhaps modest enough to give us hope that a rescue plan can be put together.
As some have said before, the puzzle not having the best situation online has not been helpful, and as far as I can tell management has done little to raise or highlight its profile.
It quickly became a highly prestigious puzzle within months of its launch 40 years ago with an amazing pantheon of renowned setters, and Mike Hutchinson has been brilliant at maintaining that quality since he took over the reins.
The i Paper taking it over would be a great opportunity to relaunch it in print and online with attendant publicity as a top-quality puzzle – that would bring even more to the paper. With The Guardian 15 x 15 cryptics slowly losing their mojo now, that shouldn’t be underestimated.
[PostMark @16, I think Skinny @14 was talking about The i Paper as 6 days a week (one edition covers the weekend).]
We have been faithful crossworders with the Independent for as long as we can remember, and are feeling bereft. The crossword isn’t the only reason for subscribing but it’s a major one and may tip us into the Guardian.
Mike and Linda
Shame on the Independent… The i Paper taking it on would be great, and they did for one week feature original puzzles many moons ago. Suppose it depends on the economics, and how long their current contract with the Independent for news, features, as well as the puzzles, lasts. Suspect we will find out just how valuable to the paper the cryptic is.
I’ve been doing the Independent online for many years now and will be desperately sorry to lose it. But I can’t really complain too much as I don’t pay them anything and I use a browser that blocks all the ads. I’d be happy to pay a (modest!) subscription to keep it going.
Sorry, I don’t feel like being respectful. This is an utterly stupid decision by short-sighted bean counters at the Indie who should be ashamed of themselves for not giving easily the best thing they’ve got the attention and profile it deserves.
What a loss, I will sorely miss their crosswords as I do five cryptics every day, so that’s one less.
I’m an offshore solver so in a different category to commenters here. I download the puzzle everyday from https://puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/cryptic-crossword-independent. I have no issues with the software and I ignore any advertising but it’s never a problem anyway. I am wondering how this happens? Does the Independent get paid for this by the website? Maybe it presents a business opportunity for someone? Keep the whole thing going privately. But that would divorce it from the newspaper and newspapers and cryptic crosswords seem to go hand in hand for UK solvers. I have tried to solve the Independent puzzle most days since 2021 so I will miss it but I’m used to losing stuff as I get older. I’ll have to fill in my morning with something else. I have a modest subscription to the G and that’s probably the better week of crosswords IMHO.
[This turned out quite long…]
I have in my files ‘the last Enigmatic Variations puzzle’ which reached a near-complete stage between the announcement of the ending of the series in 2020, and the reversal of the same decision some weeks later. So things can change.
At the same time, Beelzebub puzzles now only exist on my website (https://phionline.net.nz/ – do look them out if you’re missing them still). So things also don’t change.
I think we have to acknowledge that it’s solver numbers that will swing this – setters will be seen as having a vested interest (and the fact that they solve the other puzzles discounted). It’s encouraging to see a number of unfamiliar bylines on this thread, which reveals that even on fifteensquared there are people who solve but fly under the radar. The story from several decades ago was that the Listener editor decided to terminate the puzzle, but the announcement generated far more letters of complaint than there were ever entries.
How many are there under the radar in the wider solving community? What is the tally on the other social media sites (like Ken, I don’t peruse them often enough)? We can get an estimate of barred-puzzle fans from the Crossword Club and Magpie (I’m sure they’d share order-of-magnitude numbers), but daily puzzles must be considered to be a much larger community.
Just to be a little snarky, it’s fine to say: ‘I’d do anything to save the puzzle’ but the response to that has to be ‘how much?’. How much for a daily puzzle in your inbox and a website overseeing the process? (And perhaps we could have the occasional Beelzebub.) With an estimate of £££, it would be possible to assess viability. It’s possible to estimate an annual charge of £X, but what is needed is for solvers to say they’d be willing to pay £Y. Then all we need is Y>X…
The Independent seems to have skipped the opportunity to offer a subscription to earn money from an aspect of the paper from people who don’t want all that tedious news they can get everywhere else.
The Independent site merits some criticism – it was not, I feel, designed to maximise solver interest. My experience in New Zealand is to click on Cryptic Crossword – ‘please watch this ad while your crossword loads’ – [NO AD] – ‘please watch this ad before starting to solve’ – [NO AD]. This is odd (I haven’t set up an ad blocker, though some sites seem to think I have) – elsewhere there are plenty of examples of ads for NZ companies implanted in UK and US websites, but whoever is overseeing the Independent site seems not to have tapped into that process. Which all suggests that there might still be options for advertisements to be better targeted.
I started doing the Independent crossword in earnest after the November 2024 US election, when I desperately needed more things to distract me from the news. (I had already been doing the Guardian for over a decade.) If the paper saves the crossword by making a reasonably priced games subscription, I’ll sign up. (Like Tony above, I subscribe to the NYT Games package, so this wouldn’t be new.)
Phi @41 (love your work, by the way): my experience is that the Independent crossword interface is perfectly capable of running ads targeted at not merely US customers, but even on occasion Chicago-based ones like me. Wonder why that doesn’t happen in NZ. And yet, I do sometimes get an empty ad–maybe they simply don’t sell enough ads? Still, finding that revenue source shouldn’t be that hard.
I’ve often had the same experience as you with the website – no ad blocker, but invisible ghost ads. It doesn’t deter me, but maybe it does others. And the cryptic being not greatly visible among other puzzles isn’t ideal.
I can understand why the decision was made in very basic terms if all it takes is falling clicks to trigger it (and as editor Mike Hutchinson has implied elsewhere, it could have easily been canned before now, even as soon as the paper going exclusively online), but I think the higher-ups have fundamentally overlooked the importance and tradition of the cryptic crossword to British newspapers. It really does bring in readers if it’s placed properly and given support and revived now and then. I hope The i Paper thinks about giving it a chance.
The paperback collection of Independent crosswords was one of the very first that I bought – back when it was “Newspaper of the Year”, halcyon days. The puzzles were superb then, 25 years ago (and Phi and Quixote are in there!), and the standard has been maintained since in difficult circumstances. I’m grateful to Mike/Eimi for being given the chance to set puzzles there.
I have bought a paper copy of the i/Independent since it was first published, primarily for the crossword. It appears that my subscription will need to be transferred to an allow a daily dose of solving. Very sad and maybe a little shortsighted of The I.
That is hugely disappointing news. Like Nicholas @44 I bought the first paper copy of the Independent when it started back in 1986 and continued with the i paper when its big sister at the time went online. The Indy crossword has always been ‘my’ cryptic and I’ve appreciated the quality and range of the puzzles and the fact that Mike has brought on board some new talent. I started blogging for 225 in 2010: I was a less confident solver back then and only offered to do the Quiptic and the Everyman; but I subsequently put my name down for the Independent on Sunday and the Monday Indy, since these were generally populated with puzzles at the easier end.
This will be a harsh commercial decision, which we should certainly rail against. Who knows if that will make a difference or not? Better not to die wondering. On a personal level, I will miss blogging the Indy puzzles. There were never as many comments as on some of the other threads, but there was always an intelligent and entertaining discussion of the puzzle and often an excursion into some interesting rabbit hole.
This is where I intended to source my second daily cryptic puzzle when I no longer need the FT for work. I hope the possibility remains open.
Pierre beat us to it with many of his comments. We bought the first Independent paper copy and compared it with our regular Guardian for a few weeks. We subsequently cancelled the Guardian, purely on the basis of the standard of the cryptic puzzle.
If we went away, paper copies were saved for us so we think we can count on one hand, the number of puzzles we HAVEN’T solved.
Going on-line was easier as we could get our daily fix whenever and wherever we were.
We also subscribe to the i newspaper – no point solving the cryptic as we have already solved them but we were so pleased when they ‘saved’ the IQ.
If the Indy drops the cryptic then they will lose our subscription and our son who is also a crossword addict will do the same. He, like us has the two subscriptions, purely for the crossword as the web version of the puzzle in the Indy is not user friendly.
We blog the Independent regularly and will miss it dearly. As Pierre says, there are fewer comments but they are worth reading unlike some of the comments elsewhere.
Given that we already pay a subscription for the Indy purely for the crossword, we would happily pay the same amount for a dedicated site which published them each day.
Let’s hope the powers that be at the Indy are listening.
Quite simply, I wouldn’t buy the i if it didn’t have a cryptic crossword
As another who bought the Independent daily from the very first issue, and who now pays £2.99 a week for a subscription to the online version, this is a sad day. We will not be maintaining our subscription when the crossword disappears. (Is it confirmed that the online newspaper will be continuing? Have we just heard about the crossword ending because we have an inside track? )
Add me to the chorus of those who’ll be very sad to see it go.
I’m hugely grateful to Mike for his help, advice and encouragement in my early adventures in setting and think the Independent stable is top notch.