THEY MAY BE FREE, BUT TRANSIT PAPERS ARE READ

Publishers argue that their tabloids are creating many new readers

NEW YORK – Two weeks on the road can kill you. I was in London last week and Gotham this week, and I've seen more of the insides of hotel rooms and office buildings than anything else.

But, in both cities, I took the subway to work.

In London, pretty much everybody reads a newspaper on the subway (they call it the Tube, but it is more accurately referred to as the London Underground). In New York, pretty much everybody reads something, but there are far fewer newspapers than there are paperback novels or magazines.

Now, in London, Associated Newspapers has created a free daily tabloid it calls Metro (conflict-of-interest alert: I am currently consulting with Associated on technical issues). Perhaps a free something is better for some commuters than something you have to buy.

And free it is. While London's Metro is distributed via boxes at Tube stations, that is an insignificant part of its distribution methodology.

As I stood in the subway car day after day, I noticed that a rider would bring a Metro onto the car, peruse it and, when his or her stop came up, leave that copy of Metro behind in the car. This being London, it didn't fall to the floor; it was folded up and placed on the seat or a ledge above the seat.

As new riders poured onto the train, invariably the Metro would be picked up and read. And, again, the second reader would fold it up and leave it for the next person to come along.

I saw the same-day's Metro being read as late as 9 o'clock at night.

In New York, the daily tabloids are all over the subway cars – unfortunately, on the floor, strewn about and certainly no longer readable. But maybe that's just a New York kinda thing.

The phenomenon of free daily transit papers was such that I dispatched Senior Correspondent Julius Duscha to determine what's going on. Inside, you'll find his report, which details how a Swedish multimedia company invented the Metro concept, as well as the operations in Philadelphia and Toronto (where the two local dailies have started papers to compete with the Swedish Metro).

And early last week, the New York Daily News said it also would be starting a free transit paper. The evening edition, to be called the Daily News Express, will begin Sept. 12, and will be distributed weekdays at heavily trafficked locations such as Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, the Staten Island Ferry and the Port Authority.

Without citing the Metro concept, the Daily News said the new paper would combine short, fast-paced articles with graphics and what it called "heavy ad content." The Express will have its own editorial staff, separate from the mother ship, but it will leverage the editorial and advertising sales resources of its paid sibling.

According to the Associated Press, a Daily News spokesman said the new paper will be designed to be read in 40 to 60 minutes – the length of time it takes many commuters to get home.

"Daily News Express fills a major void in the city's journalism marketplace," the AP quoted Mortimer Zuckerman, Daily News chairman and co-publisher, as saying. "It's been a long time since New Yorkers had a real evening paper with fresh content."

Uh, wasn't the last "real evening paper" the ill-fated afternoon edition of the Daily News that was edited by magazine mogul Clay Felker in the ’80s?

Nonetheless, now we can add the New York market to the fast-growing trend toward free transit dailies. Certainly this trend will only affect those cities that depend on lots of rail transit. There won't be Metros in the hinterlands.

But, for the top North American cities, a free daily transit paper may be an advertising growth opportunity. Think of it as a demographic zoned edition.

This road trip may have worn me down and out, but I sure learned a lot.

-- David M. Cole

e-mail: dmc@newsinc.net

Inside ...

• Newsprint demand grows as supply shrinks and price rises
• A foreign idea – free transit papers – is catching on
• Campaign for political ad dollars seeks new accounts
• Circulation chiefs find summer is no lazy time for them
• Five-year forecast for newspapers calls for strong growth
• Pity the poor copyright in the web age
• Persons

From NEWSINC., Aug. 28, 2000, Copyright © 2000, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.