You may recall earlier this week how a picture of Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alistair Campbell featured erroneously on another man’s obituary. Well, expect his name to be added to Wikipedia’s list of premature obits any time soon.
Another entry for that list? The freesheet.
Despite the demise of thelondonpaper, the layoffs at the Metro and fashionable talk of paid-for online content, the freesheets has still got a lot of life in its lungs.
As I argue in my latest piece for Journalism.co.uk – Free is just another cover price – :
thelondonpaper isn’t closing because the model was flawed but because News International either couldn’t make it work in the current economic climate or was unwilling to give a paper, still in its infancy, the time it needed to become commercially viable.
Not to mention that it was only ever designed to be a spoiler (which may mean that the spoiler’s spoiler, aka London Lite, may go the same way).
Regardless, if you want to know why you’ll still get mugged by a freesheet vendor at a station near you, continue reading: Free is just another cover price.
Related:
– Born Free: Why the free-sheets’ law of the jungle is a joke
– Scarcity, Abundance And The Misapprehension Of Online Advertising
Jon Bernstein 