Hard to believe but someone has raised £5.5m and is to spend it on launching a free newspaper in London. Better still this paper (to be published two days a week) looks like TheLondonPaper...well the logo at least as so far that's all we can see. It's being reported that a media pack for "the London Weekly" claims 250,000 copies will be distributed on Friday and Saturday outside rail and tube stations. Clearly, having seen what happened to London Lite, TheLondonPaper and how Sport crashed and burned it has still struck someone as a good idea to try again. It will compete with the London Evening Standard, but that paper has advertising and resources and a 500,000 strong circulation. Sounds like Belgium taking on Germany again. News of this "launch" comes on the day that the Evening Standard says it will drop its midday News Extra edition and cut 20 jobs.There is no launch date, but the story suggests that it could "appear in February" a holding page stating that the London Weekly website will go live on December 20.A report on Media Guardian says that the media pack for the London Weekly suggests it will borrow "heavily from the editorial model of now-defunct freesheets theLondonPaper and LondonLite". No kidding. That's not borrowing. Take a look at the logo.
I thought we'd seen the last of the purple, but no. Not only is someone launching a new free London newspaper, but they are recycling someone else's ideas to do it. I mean come on. How serious are these people? Can you imagine showing this to media buyers? Do you think they will spot the similarity? The only thing that can explain the similarity is that they went to Rupert Murdoch's car boot sale and bought the design templates for TheLondonPaper at a knock down price. That or the whole thing is a joke. Is it April already? Christmas comes and goes so fast.Personally, this whole venture (if it is true) strikes me as hilarious. It must be a spoof/joke/act of (pricey) insanity. Good luck with that one. I will be very surprised if this project ever gets off the ground.
Having said the above, I'm sure there is still a market for a decent free weekly that combines listings with news and entertainment. That takes on Time Out. That magazine has a circulation of only 64,712. In a city the size of London with so much going on someone is missing a trick.
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Are they mad. Especially when we have already seen off the other competition. www.theothersidemag.co.uk/magazine ...
Gordon Macmillan
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