Forget what you heard when Doug Wills visited PANPA’s Future Forum a couple of weeks back; all bets are off with his ‘London Evening Standard’ opting to bid for a share of the city’s free newspaper market, writes Peter Coleman in London.
Wills, managing editor of the title – bought from Associated Newspapers by Russian Alexander Lebedev for £1 (about $2) eight months ago – told PANPA delegates of the changes made since, at the event on September 10.
These included recruiting former ‘Tatler’ magazine editor Geordie Greig as editor, experimenting with advertisement positioning, and charging different prices for the paper according to the time of day.
And there were other happenings, “you wouldn’t read about,” Wills says.
But while publishers in Sydney were told that the changes were working, the market continued to move: First, Rupert Murdoch’s ‘thelondonpaper’ dropped out, leaving the free evening field to ‘London Lite’, published by Associated, which also produces the market-leading ‘Metro’ morning free.
Then on Friday, Lebedev announced that his 182-year-old acquisition would become a freesheet in a week’s time, ending a struggle for circulation which has seen its circulation fall from 450,000 to just over 160,000 copies nightly.
Timed soon after Murdoch’s declaration of intent to charge for access to News’ online content, the closure of ‘thelondonpaper’ was seen more as a lifeline for ‘London Lite’, but now there is speculation that this title will close or merge with the ‘Standard’.
The ‘Evening Standard’ website says that its decision go become ‘the world’s first quality free’ – distributing 600,000 copies a day in inner-London locations accessible to the affluent readers sought by advertisers – has been well received by Londoners including mayor Boris Johnson.
There’s also hope of a lifesaving 40 per cent increase in advertising revenue.
But the move remains an experiment in a tough and crowded market. As media commentator Stephen Glover of London daily ‘The Independent’ put it, “It's a bit like trying to forecast whether a modestly provisioned schooner will ever touch land in the New World. I hope it will.”
