New London freesheet to be launched after Christmas

A group of unknown investors are set to launch a new weekly freesheet in London in the new year.

Around 250,000 copies of the London Weekly are expected to be distributed twice a week – on Fridays and Saturdays – outside rail and tube stations in the capital, according to reports.

Global Publishing Group has raised more than £5.5 million to launch the title, along with a London Weekly website, online radio station and TV channel.

The publisher hasn’t announced a launch date for the title but it is expected to hit the newsstands some time in February.

The title’s media pack, which has been released to potential advertisers, suggests that the London Weekly will focus on similar content to the recently closed daily freesheets thelondonpaper and London Lite.

The pack says the title will offer “entertainment, light politics, music, sports … every Friday and Saturday mornings outside all main line tube stations”. It also claims that around 30% of the newspaper’s content will be generated by its readers.

Details of the new title, which will enter the market as rival to the Evening Standard, will not be unveiled until next year, according to the publisher.

However, the media pack includes a rate card, which states that a full-page advert for the title will cost £5,250 and a double-page spread will be priced at £9,291.

These prices are thought to be similar to the ones charged by established freesheet titles.

Last week, the London Evening Standard – which took the decision to go free and distribute over 600,000 copies a day in October – announced plans to publish all of its copies as a West End Final edition of the paper.

From January 2010, all copies of the evening freesheet will be printed in the afternoon with “the latest developing stories being updated on the presses as they run until early evening” and distributed later in a bid to reach more home-going commuters and business people.