UK: The Times offers downloadable business supplement

Posted by John Burke on September 5, 2006 at 7:21 AM

News International's The Times has launched an afternoon online business supplement in PDF format. The downloadable document dubbed The Note will go live at 5pm every weekday and will "provide the latest news, insider analysis and agenda-setting comment on the day’s biggest business stories." The new product is notable for two reasons:

1. Two major papers, The Guardian and El Pais, have started similar PDF projects in the past few months but both are updated frequently (G24, The Guardian's offering every 15 minutes) and are general, not just focused on business news. It has been speculated that the two offerings were created in response to an influx of free papers, which make up 50% of Spain's newspaper market and which have just tipped off a war in London, because they allow readers to print the file at their leisure and carry it with them on the commute to and/or from work.

The Guardian and El Pais have not launched free papers of their own.

2. But The Times' parent company, NI, has. It launched an evening freesheet, thelondonpaper, this week. The new free paper will compete with Associated Newspaper's London Lite, another freesheet that began distribution last week. Both papers are aimed at the younger professional crowd and include mostly news briefs, entertainment, lifestyle features and listings. By spinning off a quick Times supplement, could The Note be NI's preparation for an afternoon freesheet aimed at London's bustling businessmen?

Sources: Publicitas, The Times

ps. Canada's Toronto Star has also created a downloadable version

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