Associated win and lose the London freesheet war

According to a piece in Campaign magazine, Associated Newspapers is winning the battle in the London freesheet war by consistently distributing more copies of London Lite than its News International rival, thelondonpaper. "Sources" at Associated say it is regularly hitting its 400,000 distribution target, while thelondonpaper is closer to a distribution of 360,000. But the distribution of the free titles appears to be hitting sales of the Evening Standard to a greater extent than was originally claimed by Associated. Two weeks ago, it said that the Standard's daily sale was down by around 7,000. Now those Associated "sources" are saying the Standard sold around 220,000 copies at full price last Friday, down from its average full-price sale in August of 268,405. (Via Brand Republic)