Search results matching tag 'Freesheets'

Daily Mirror as a free sheet?

255762 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Piers Morgan has a plan for the survival of the Daily Mirror: make it a freesheet.

Writing in the British Journalism Review Morgan says that every national newspaper will be free within 10 years and that the Daily Mirror should be the first.

Sounds radical doesn't it? But with the Daily Mirror's sales continuing to steadily fall away (1.42m in October down 1.48% for the month) it could happen.

Former Mirror editor Morgan argues that Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey needs to make the radical decision before The Sun beats it to the punch.

"I would make the Daily Mirror free tomorrow, because I don't see any future for it otherwise. If The Sun were to go free tomorrow it would kill the Mirror. It's a horrific position to be in and I'm sure that if Sly Bailey could find a buyer at the right price she'd sell the national titles like a shot."

I'm pretty sure that Bailey has more than a little time to play with. 1.42m is still a big pile of newspapers and the Sun won't be going free any time soon.

It seems likely if any paper will be first to go free it will be the Evening Standard, which continues to face a costly battle against the London freesheet newspapers.

The Evening Standard's circulation might have jumped above 300,000 for the first time in four months in October, but bulks make up more than 40% of its circulation.

Just how much longer can Associated continue to poor money into producing two London evening newspapers? It has already shed staff and stories are shared with London Lite as it battles News International's Thelondonpaper.

As media jobs are cut left right and centre, advertising dries up, it seems highly unlikely that London can continue to sustain three evening newspapers.

I'm convinced that the next seismic shift in British newspapers will come in that market (unless the Independent suddenly gets sold by Independent News & Media to the Daily Mail & General Trust).

Hat tip Press Gazette

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Life on the streets

255762 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:12:00 GMT

It isn't the worse job in the world, but handing out London's mountain of free papers has to be close, so it's interesting to see what the distributors think of the job themselves in this little documentary.

Every distributor has a story and largely it is an immigrant story, handing out papers while studying or just making ends meet, as really many don't want a proper job with the stresses and strains that come with it.

Most are like Tamin Rahman from Bangladesh, studying while ekeing out some cash to survive on giving out thelondonpaper and London Lite. There are Indians, Nigerians and even a French artist. Sarah Le Roy.

A couple use the word "degrading", which is uncomfortable to hear, as are how rude and occasionally abusive members of the public can be.

What also comes across in this CurrentTV documentary is that they are largely an optimistic bunch who are up off of their arses and doing something, which is a lot more than can be said for some.

Well worth a look.

The madness of print

255762 — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:57:18 GMT

There's something about print, about launching newspapers, that makes people aspire no matter the odds. That seems case in Spain where a new daily is about to launch – and it is not a free paper.

With the freesheet battles blazing in the UK, and newspaper sales falling generally, it looks increasingly like the odds of successfully launching new national dailies are ever diminishing.

The last to try in the UK, the Sportsman in 2006, ended in disaster with millions lost and a circulation of just 40,000, but such tales of disaster have not stopped the publishers and editors of Público, which recently launched in Madrid and believe they can beat the odds in a generally moribund market.

This might be in part because unlike the rest of the West, Spain is not suffering a decline in newspaper sales. In the ten years to 2005 sales are up 2% on the back of Spain's economic boom. This has happened in concert with a free newspaper market, which has grown to around 5m in the last five years.

Público is a full-colour daily that sells for €0.50 (half that of its rivals) and is placing hopes of its success on targeting a young 25-45 age group with a bold left-leaning popular paper.

Ignacio Escolar, the newspaper's editor, told the New York Times that the Spanish newspaper market had been a failure over the past century and that following the fall of fascist dictator Franco in 1975 Spain had "set up a press that was highly politicized".

Público is different in other ways as well. There is no coverage of bullfights, no death notices and no ads for prostitutes, which are all familiar features of the Spanish press.

Unlike the UK where broadband penetration is high, it is still relatively low with 15 of every 100 households connected, which has to help Público, as does the lack of a tabloid newspaper market.

There is no popular equivalent of the Sun or Daily Mail; there isn't even a paper that sells a million copies out of the established big-name titles that most of us are familiar with such as El País (with which Público will compete head to head for liberal/left readers), ABC and El Mundo. It is these facts more than anything else that underscore how different the Spanish market is.

Jaume Roures, one of Público's backers and an executive of Mediapro, told the paper: "Freesheets have encouraged a lot of people to read every day, and we believe they are potential buyers of a second paper."