In a year predicted to feature many newspaper closures, the demise of London Lite is perhaps the least surprising. After all, it was only ever set up as a spoiler against the London Paper – News International's own spoiler against Associated Newspaper's London Evening Standard and Metro.
Once the London Paper had gone and then, slightly more surprisingly, the Evening Standard had gone free, what was the point of London Lite? The Lite was a free newspaper paying to reprint copy from what is now another free newspaper, the Standard. And, because of the ownership structure, where just under 75% of the Standard was sold to Alexander Lebedev but Lite was still owned by Associated parent Daily Mail & General Trust, the newspaper group was paying for the privilege of defending turf it no longer even owned.
After some "consultation", up to 36 Lite staff will lose their jobs or be reassigned within the DMGT empire. And then what?
On Twitter, Jonathan Bowman suggests a conspiracy-theory-and-a-half from Lebedev:
"Evening Standard goes free -> London Lite closes -> Evening Standard starts charging again?"
Or perhaps there is an even deeper conspiracy. Was a deal done to end the ear-bleedingly expensive London freesheet wars? Will DMGT now offer a shared ownership or printing deal to News International for Metro? I'm sure that such a deal, were it to have been done, would breach some kind of anti-competitive rules. And anyway, no ruling worth an iota would ever have been made against it by competition regulators.
So, farewell London Lite. Not many will mourn your passing.
