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By Richard Parsons, Director of Training
The end of the free newspaper war in London offers an interesting insight into people’s reading preferences.
Just to recap, the two rival afternoon frees, thelondonpaper and London Lite, heavy loss makers since their launches, have gone under since the Evening Standard announced it was going to abandon its cover charge and virtually double its distribution to 600,000.
What has happened since? To this writer, anyway, it appears that the public are embracing their newspaper, rather than crossing the street to avoid having one thrust into your hand, as used to happen with the doomed frees.
They want their Standard. It’s always been recognised as a paper of quality and people appreciate its superior editorial content. OK, it’s not in the same league as it used to be, but its coverage is a whole lot more incisive than the other frees and its writers are respected.
From my experience, it is also delivered into the reader’s hand in a less aggressive way.
I first noticed this reaction at my local station with the free morning Metro (which still continues). It is stacked in bins and the papers quickly disappear as people exercise their own choice, without being pushed into making a decision by a persistent distributor.
As for the quality, that’s questionable. However, it does offer a quick summary of the previous day’s news and sport without an over-reliance on celebrity gossip.
One wonders what would happen to it if the Standard increased to two editions a day, morning and afternoon. Would it survive without upping its game in terms of editorial content?
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