UK: News Corp to launch London freesheet

Posted by John Burke on August 2, 2006 at 3:55 PM

Confirming suspicions, News International, the newspaper wing of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire, will launch a free newspaper entitled thelondonpaper in September. The 48-page full-color paper will be mostly focused on entertainment and will include content created by readers.

NI is one of several publishers bidding for the rights to London Underground and Network Rail contracts but could effectively bypass the need for these contracts by distributing outside of public transportation stops. It hopes to create a loyal readership before its competitors are able to launch their own free papers inside train and Tube stations.

The paper is aimed at young professionals within Zone 1 of the London Tube and plans to distribute 400,000 copies between 4:30 and 7:30 pm, putting it in competition with the ailing 40p Evening Standard.

A team of 700 distributors will also gauge the effectiveness of thelondonpaper's penetration by communicating with one another through PDAs in order to determine the best spots to hand out the paper tot he desired demographic.

If the freesheet is successful in London, NI plans on expanding into other cities in the UK.

Sources: The Guardian, Brand Republic

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