| A few days ago marked the first day off the Evening Standard being free for all London commuters. Just recently the closure of the London paper, one of two popular free sheets in London, was announced and the Evening Standard took the opportunity to fill this void by becoming the next new free paper. Obviously the Standard has always been a paid paper, so to remove circulation revenue, one has to wonder if there is more money to be made from free sheet advertising.
Yesterday I wholly expected to pick up a flimsy, gossip based, half assed version of the Standard, but to my amazement I was in fact holding a complete, well written piece of free press, which is fantastic news, literally. The worry is that costs of producing and distributing a free sheet against the advertising revenue to be made will put even more pressure on budgeting, inevitably leading to cost cutting in some form. If content has to take a hit they may soon find themselves in the same boat as the London paper. |
