It would be foolish to claim that Manchester's experience with a giveaway newspaper will soon be reproduced in London. Foolish, but tempting all the same. It appears that the free edition published by the Manchester Evening News has outstripped expectations. Daily circulation of the free city centre edition has risen to 60,000 copies since its May launch, significantly higher than the planned 50,000 copies. Meanwhile, the paper's paid-for editions are slipping downwards. The next set of officially audited figures are likely to show a 10,000 drop to 120,000. Most of that fall can be attributed to the fact that 7,000 copies previously sold in the city centre are now given away free. Nor have price rises helped.
This trend seems to be in line with the expectations of the paper's managers, Guardian Media Group (GMG), and its editor, Paul Horrocks. They believe it justifies a strategy aimed at winning a combined distribution/circulation of the free and paid-for Evening News of 200,000 by the end of 2007. Horrocks told Press Gazette that the reduction in paid-for copies "will continue to be replaced and supplemented by additional free copies." This implies an acceptance of an ever-decreasing paid-for paper and the hope of an ever-increasing take-up of the free version. "I don't see all our papers going free in the near future," says Horrocks, "but inevitably it is going in that direction." Inevitable indeed!
In acknowledging the boldness of the Evening News initiative, Horrocks rightly points out that its overall effect will not become clear for at least a couple of years. He will be pleased too with the findings of a survey carried out by CBA Research Consultants into the readership of the free edition. It claims that most of the Evening News's city centre readers are five-day-a-week commuters aged between 15 and 44 years, and that seven out of 10 readers of them are ABC1s. Many are new readers, or readers of increased frequency, and read the paper for an average of 26 minutes each issue, which is about the same time spent by readers of the paid-for editions.
That news was hailed by GMG's regional division chief executive, Mark Dodson, who believes the new readership profile "is great news for advertisers." Well, he really means great news for his advertising sales department, of course, but I catch his drift. He also speaks of having made a "bold move" in the face of regional press circulation decline, and it's also true that the Manchester Evening News is England's largest-selling regional daily.
So does its experience with the free/paid-for duality offer a lesson to London as the metropolis prepares for a giveaway newspaper war between Associated Newspapers, the owners of the Evening Standard, and News International, which is about to launch the giveaway title, thelondonpaper? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper, but only up to a point. It certainly underlines the popularity of free papers. Then again, people are bound to like getting something for nothing. It also confirms the trend away from newspaper-buying. Again, that's hardly novel.
But I'm going to start by risking being rude about both the Manchester Evening News and the people of Manchester. There is no doubt that the Standard is a more sophisticated paper than the Evening News, as are the readers who purchase it. That does enable the Standard to pin its faith on retaining a substantial and upscale audience for its paid-for title. However, once its owners flood the capital in the early afternoon with 400,000 free copies of London Lite and News Int comes along a couple of hours later with 400,000 more freebie copies of thelondonpaper, it's highly likely that the Standard will, like the paid-for editions of the Manchester Evening News, suffer a dramatic fall. Note also that Horrocks believes price rises at the Evening News have been influential in the drop in buying. And, as we know, the Standard is contemplating a price hike.
So Associated, in spite of the differences between London and Manchester, would do well to study what's happening "up north". Could it even convince its management to delay the introduction of a cover price rise at the Standard?
