The future of free media

What is the future for free papers? News International's freesheet thelondonpaper lost £16.5m in the first year of operation according to figures just out. Going on figures like this, it is hard to visualise a future filled with free media, where both the quality and the quantity of free titles has increased astronomically.

But this is what some trend analysts are predicting. William Higham, founder of research firm Next Big Thing, has suggested that consumers in the future will not be choosing between buying a title and picking up a free one, but instead, will be faced with a decision about which free title to choose.

Is this the case? With such huge losses are the revenues really there to sustain a free media?

Free titles are popping up all over the place. Just this week another free magazine launched called 'The Other Side', which is targeted at commuters on London's Northern Line. It joins the other free magazines Sport and ShortList, just to name a couple.

It's early days for these titles and early days for thelondonpaper and London Lite. Of course they can't post a profit in their first year of operation. But, I believe in the future perhaps they can, by tweaking the business model and making sure the content is of the highest quality.

It could take a few years, but the good models, the ones with quality content, will inevitably be successful.

A loss of £16.5m is a lot, but when you take into account start-up costs and dummy-run costs, it's not that much really, especially when it was originally launched as a spoiler to Associated's London Lite. I'm sure Rupert thinks it's money well spent to make sure Associated doesn't get a grip on a potentially profitable market.

And it's a small price to pay to cross-promote NI's and News Corps' other products, like The Sun, the News of the World, Collins books, Sky TV, 20th Century Fox movies, MySpace, etc etc. In that way, I'm sure the loss has been more than worth it.

Personally, I'm still waiting for Richard Desmond's legendary London Eye, the "paper" that got the other two off their arses but has yet to surface. Bated breath, tricky Dicky, bated breath.

there is money to be made here, but some of these titles are just AWFUL drivel, i think its simply a matter of differentiating the god from the bad, the good will win, the bad will fall away and die off. Of course outside london in smaller towns, there aren't any free papers, perhaps they are missing a trick!

Having 2 free papers every evening seems madness. And not just from an environmental point of view. Two publishing houses having an ego battle on the streets of London - what's that about? I have to question these fools that run these papers. With a loss like that I bet he gets a big bonus if he's anything like a banker.