Statistics from the latest "Estudio General de Medios" shows that the popular free paper 20 Minutos has surpassed El Pais as the Spanish paper with the largest readership, the first time this has happened in Spain. 20 Minutos, according to the study, has a readership of 2,298,000 whereas El Pais claims 2,048,000 pairs of eyes per day.

Perhaps the most frightening statistics fall below these two papers. Immediately following El Pais on the list are two more free papers, Que! (1,923,000 readers) and Metro (1,904,000 readers). Lagging behind in fifth place is the traditional paper El Mundo. At 1,342,000, it has almost 1 million readers less than 20 Minutos.

Still, some dispute the quality of free papers. In November, 20 Minutos printed a cover page monopolized by an advert for a magazine, Interviu, which was itself dominated by a half-naked woman. Needless to say, the paper received some complaints.

But the freesheet's director, Arsenio Escolar, took an interesting approach to confronting the problem. Instead of apologizing or defending his editorial choice, he began a sort of referendum on his blog letting the readers have a go at the subject themselves and seeing how many objected and how many didn't mind.

In this respect, an opinion in Periodista Digital may have hit the Spanish newspaper situation right on. It opines that a a free paper is not number one merely because it is easier to read than traditional papers. Rather, traditional papers have not adapted to the changing habits of readers.

Sources: Difusion, Periodista Digital (both in Spanish)