Insight Feature: Metro Taps Into Lucrative Youth Audience

Associated’s Metro newspaper was one of the success stories of 2000, leaping from a regional free available to London commuters to the rank of sixth-largest national daily. The morning title may have dented the profits of its parent company but its roll-out continues. Today commuters in Yorkshire will join those in London, the Midlands, Scotland, the North East and North West when the Yorkshire Metro, a joint venture between Associated and Regional Independent Media, took to the streets of Sheffield and Leeds.
The aggressive roll-out of Metro may not be warranted financially, with only the London edition turning a profit so far, but the success of the title comes from its ability to tap into a declining newspaper audience – the young and upmarket. Readership figures for the title, compiled by TGI, show an audience heavily weighted towards the younger demographic. A massive 42% of its London readership are between the ages of 25 and 34 and 78% of its total audience in this region are under 44. Across the country the bias remains, with 77% of all readers under 44, with the 16-24 age group making up 32% of the audience, according to the Research Survey of Great Britain 2000 (RSGB 2000).
Its bias towards youth is higher than any other national daily. Its nearest competitors are the Daily Star and the Sun: 69% of the Star‘s readership and 61% of Sun readers come from the under-44 age group, according to NRS figures.
However both of these titles also attract downmarket audiences: 65% of Star readers and 58% of Sun readers are in the C2D category. Metro, however, claims a 70% ABC1 audience, with 72% of its readers in full-time work, according to RSGB 2000. It is the combination of these two demographics that makes Metro unique. Its bitesize “no nonsense” format has succeeded in converting the lapsed newspaper readers advertisers are desperate to attract.