London Lite Wins Battle Of Free Papers For September
The London Lite is winning the battle of the free newspapers, recording its first ABC of 359,389, compared to thelondonpaper, which stands at a distribution of 327,120.
The new free titles, which were launched in London at the beginning of this month, have also clearly impacted on the Capital’s paid-for evening newspaper, the Evening Standard.
The Standard dropped to its lowest ever circulation figure in September, shedding almost 24,000 copies since August.
The title has recorded a year on year drop of 38,000 copies, with this month’s dip clearly having a huge impact on that figure. In a possible attempt at counteracting this loss and boosting its circulation for October, the paper handed out 50,000 free copies of the title on Wednesday evening after agreeing a deal with phone company Nokia (see Nokia Boosts The Evening Standard’s Circulation).
In September, the Standard‘s circulation had fallen to 238,936 copies a day, down from 268,405 in August. However, after raising the paper’s cover price by 10p (see Standard Raises Price As London Lite Launches), the title’s daily revenues were actually up in September, from £107,362 a day to £119,468.
Free paper Metro, which is distributed in London in the morning, remained fairly static, recording a figure of almost 550,000 copies.
| London Titles | Sep-06 |
| Morning Papers | |
| City AM | 90,636 |
| Metro | 549,713 |
| Evening Papers | |
| Evening Standard | 289,254 |
| London Lite | 359,389 |
| thelondonpaper | 327,120 |
| Total London Papers | 1,616,112 |
ABC: 01442 870 800 www.abc.org.uk