The Rise Of The Free Press

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News travels fast on the London Underground during the morning rush hour. On a typical day, only commuters taking to the capital's subway trains before 9 a.m. can get hold of a copy of Metro, the free daily newspaper piled high in racks near the station entrance. Metro is a popular title, and copies are snapped up quickly. So getting a newspaper after 9 a.m. usually means paying for it — which a declining number of Britons seem prepared to do. Scanning his Metro while awaiting a train to work, Jonathan Cole, a 26-year-old stockbroker, sniffs at actually purchasing his morning read: "Not if there's one for free." While paid circulation among British national newspapers skidded 2.5% in the five months to March, distribution of Associated Newspapers' Metro reached the 1 million mark last year, making it the fourth highest-circulation Monday-to-Friday paper in the U.K.

And it's not just Britain. London-based publisher Metro International (no relation to Associated's title) last week rolled out its own Metro in Porto, Portugal, the 56th edition since launching in Sweden 10 years ago. And 20 Minutes, set up by Norwegian media group Schibsted in 1999, is thumbed in 20 cities across France, Spain and Switzerland, racking up 5 million daily readers. The secret of the giveaways? They're free and easy. For young, urban, time-poor commuters, "It's the right product, at the right place and at the right time," says Sverre Munck, executive vice president of Schibsted and ceo of 20 Min Holding, which controls 20 Minutes in France and Spain.

The rise in free papers is one more headache for traditional dailies, already smarting thanks to competition from online and television news providers (Dow Jones & Company, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, last week announced plans to shrink its title's European and Asian editions to tabloid size in October). Daily newspaper circulation fell across much of Europe between 1999 and 2003, dropping 2.3% in France, 6.2% in the Netherlands and 8.1 % in Germany. As many paid-for titles fight for readers, free dailies — typically stuffed with enough short, sharp international and local news, business, sports and entertainment for a 20-minute

	The record of these free newspapers has been ... to more seriously damage existing newspapers — RUPERT MURDOCH, CEO, News Corporation

commute — are booming, even as some media observers worry that the growth of free media erodes quality journalism.

The math favors the freebies. Take Spain, where only 122 people in 1,000 read a paid-for daily paper — compared to a European average of around 250 — according to Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the Paris-based World Editors Forum. Distributed in nine Spanish cities, 20 Minutos — the local title of Schibsted's giveaway — is aimed at the vast majority of Spaniards who don't pay for a daily paper. "If a reader sees something that really interests him and he wants to know more, then he can pay for a paper for more in-depth coverage," insists José Antonio Martínez Soler, director general of 20 Minutos in Spain. The publication now ranks as one of the country's most widely circulated papers.

At least for now, the Spanish market seems capable of supporting both giveaways and paid-for papers. But free sheets poaching readers from traditional titles "has contributed to a crisis" in France, insists Pecquerie. Metro International's 10 editions, stacked alongside 20 Minutes' coverage of seven French cities, mean "the menace is real for the paid-for newspapers."