FT Launches Compact Afternoon Freesheet
Staff – MediaTel NewsLine 
UK publishing group, Pearson PLC has announced the launch of a free afternoon version of the Financial Times, called FTpm.
The A4-sized freesheet will be available in print and online every afternoon from Monday to Friday, and will contain two sides of the day’s top business news stories, comment and analysis.
It will carry advertising but will also be used to attract readers to the website and the following day’s paper by promoting content.
Last month, The Manchester Evening News (MEN) announced today the launch of a Lite version of the paper, which will be distributed free in the city centre from March 21 (see Manchester Evening News To Launch Lite Edition).
Elsewhere, Independent News and Media announced plans to launch a compact edition of The Belfast Telegraph, fuelling industry speculation that the publication will eventually abandon its broadsheet format (see Belfast Telegraph Downsizes To Compact).
The compact issue will be available to readers from morning until lunchtime, at which time the traditional broadsheet will be sold.
The free version of the MEN, owned by the Guardian Media Group, will be aimed at commuters who typically do not buy a newspaper as they leave Manchester in the evening. It will contain a mixture of news, lifestyle features and entertainment.
Manchester Evening News plans to soft launch the Lite edition and quickly build to the target circulation of 10,000 copies per night.
At the end of last year, the Financial Times announced the closure of its Creative Business media section just a month after denying reports that the supplement was to fold, the section was wound down with media news instead being incorporated into the main newspaper on a monthly basis (see FT Pulls The Plug On Creative Business).
Financial Times: 020 873 3000 www.ft.com
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