Does size matter? The jury is out!

A free daily in California has reduced the height of its pages from 16 inches to 11.25 inches.

The Palo Alto Daily News made the change May 5, according to the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club. The move was required when the paper changed press rooms. But it raises the question of what size do readers prefer?

We don't have any opinion on that, but we can see the pros and cons. The pros are that a smaller paper might fit under a person's arm better and increase page count. The cons are that there are fewer objects to see on each page and a taller paper won't be mistaken for junk mail.

Palo Alto, a city about 30 miles south of San Francisco, is a fiercely competitive market for free dailies, with the Palo Alto Daily News (recently changing its name to "The Daily News") dominating the market for years. The Daily Journal, based in San Mateo, began distributing in Palo Alto a few years ago. And the founders of the Daily News, who sold the paper in 2005, have started the Palo Alto Daily Post. And each paper has a different page size. It may take years to sort out which page size readers prefer the most.

Tobacco ad ruling hits Canadian free dailies

With cigarette ads prohibited on TV in Canada, free dailies have benefitted from tobacco advertising. The Tobacco Act allowed cigarette ads in publications if they had an adult readership of at least 85 percent. A new bill in the federal legislature (C-32) would eliminate that provision. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said the tougher advertising regulations are in response to a "wave" of tobacco advertising in the last few years in publications that are easily accessible by young people, according to a report by CanWest, a publisher of free dailies. Publishers are crying foul. If these new restrictions are approved, free dailies could be hit hard.

Free daily planned for Cape Cod

Here's one from the I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that department: GateHouse Media New England will launch a free, seasonal daily on Cape Cod that will start in June and end on Labor Day.

The new publication, Cape Cod Day, will publish Tuesday through Saturday and will be distributed free across Cape Cod at hundreds of locations with an average daily distribution of 25,000, according to announcement posted on the company's WickedLocal website.

“The focus on the new daily paper will specifically target the tens of thousands of summer visitors, as well as vacationing Cape Codders, who enjoy this beautiful place we get to call home year-round,” said Mark Skala, publisher of GateHouse Media’s Cape Cod region. “The editorial focus of Cape Cod Day will be to produce fun, informative stories and resources for readers such as local news, things to do with the family, arts and entertainment features, and stories that highlight the people, businesses and natural beauty of the Cape environment.

“This is a paper produced by Cape Codders who call Cape Cod home and want to offer visitors and tourists a glimpse of the Cape through our perspective,” said Skala. “This new free daily will also be an affordable alternative to advertisers, and to readers who don’t want to spend $1 a day for a newspaper.”

Gate House already publishes a number of weekly papers in the area, and the new paper will be produced out of its newsroom in Orleans.

Within hours of the company’s internal announcement about the planned launch, Skala said the sales force had already booked front page ads with local Cape Cod businesses for the entire 11-week print run.

“The initial response so far to Cape Cod Day has been incredibly positive and encouraging,” said Skala. “People are hungry to have an alternative source for news, information and a new, affordable opportunity for local businesses to advertise.”

The concept has been tested before. In Portsmouth, N.H., Ottaway Newspapers has published a summer-only, five-day-a-week paper, the Daily Beachcomber, for the past two seasons, Editor & Publisher points out.

Anschutz's San Francisco City Star burns out

Three months after closing the Baltimore Examiner, conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz is halting daily distribution of one of his papers in San Francisco — The City Star.

The City Star will become a section on Wednesdays and Fridays within The Examiner, Anschutz's other free daily in San Francisco.

The 12-page final edition of The City Star on Friday (shown here) consisted of 15 state and national wire stories even though it said "San Francisco's Free Daily Neighborhood Newspaper" on its masthead. Not one mentioned any of San Francisco's neighborhoods. The front page stories were about the state budget crunch, a star of the "slum dog" movie losing his home in India and rapper DMX being released from an Arizona jail.

The final edition had only 11 display ads (not including classifieds). The number of people laid off wasn't known.

Metro sells NY, Philly, Boston to its former CEO

The Metro International chain announced today (May 11, 2009) that it is selling its three U.S. editions to a group started by former Metro chief executive Pelle Törnberg (pictured) for $2 million.

Törnberg was the founding CEO of Metro, which started in Sweden in 1995. He expanded Metro around the world, but left the company in 2007 with heavy debts. Metro found new readers, but had a harder time finding profits.

Törnberg's Seabay Media Holdings will publish Metro under a service-and-licensing agreement with Metro International, a European holding company with newspapers worldwide.

The three newspapers — in Boston, New York and Philadelphia — have a combined circulation of 590,000 copies per day and reach about 1.2 million readers.

The New York Times Co. will retain its 49 percent stake in Metro Boston for now. But with the Times under pressure to cut costs, it could possibly sell that stake.

The sale follows Metro International's closure of its operations in Spain. Most of Metro's losses last year came from its operations in Spain and the U.S.

The transaction is scheduled to close June 1.

Philly publisher out after trying to buy paper

The buzz in Philadelphia is that Eric Mayberry is no longer publisher of that city's edition of Metro, but his parting with the company appears to be on friendly terms. Mayberry was negotiating with his employer to buy the paper. The negotiations fell through and now he's a consultant. Metro is among his clients. He plans to help Metro lobby for state and city legal ads now reserved for paid papers like the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mayberry also tells the Web site Philly.com that he wlll write a column for Metro, subject "to be determined."

Metro International president Per Mikael Jensen says in a press release that Mayberry "is leaving Metro Philadelphia in much better shape than when he arrived."

As we have said previously, Philadelphia Metro was transformed during Mayberry's reign as publisher. The content became more lively and upbeat, with staff written stories replacing wire copy. The emphasis switched from trying to reach transit riders to reaching younger readers coveted by advertisers. Philly Metro also picked up a number of A-list advertisers, which has the effect of raising the stature of the paper.

Paid paper in Colorado launches free daily

Colorado, the state with the most free dailies, is getting yet another one.

The paid Colordo Springs Gazette announced Tuesday that on May 6 it will launch a new, free, four-day a week newspaper targeted at the city's downtown and west side and Manitou Springs.

The new publisher of The Gazette is Steve Pope, formerly of the Vail Daily, one of the first free dailies. Pope replaced Scott McKibben, who had previously headed the San Francisco Examiner, also a free daily. So it's our guess that the concept of free dailies had been talked about at The Gazette for quite a while.

Today's announcement suggests the creation of Ink is both a defensive and offensive move.

• Defensive in the sense that Colorado Springs is a ripe market for a free daily in a state where most of the other major cities already have them — Ink will make it less likely that somebody else will start a free paper in the Springs.

• Offensive in that it will attempt to attract small advertisers who can't afford the paid Gazette.

The printing schedule will be different than other papers — Ink will appear Wednesday through Saturday, hitting the days that advertisers have gradually moved toward in other newspapers.

California free daily group makes deep cuts

The Palo Alto Daily News, located about 30 miles south of San Francisco, has eliminated its Sunday edition and closed its sister papers in three cities in neighboring San Mateo County.

Last June, the Palo Alto paper dropped its Monday edition. So, in less than a year, it has gone from publishing seven days a week to five. Only a few years ago, the Palo Alto Daily News was growing, adding editions and regularly printing papers with 100 pages or more. Now its page count ranges from 28 to 52 depending on the day of the week.

The three editions that were canceled were the Burlingame Daily News, San Mateo Daily News and Redwood City Daily News.

The three competed in an unusually crowded market of free daily newspapers. San Mateo County also has the San Mateo Daily Journal, The Daily Post (based in Palo Alto but distributed in San Mateo County), and the San Francisco Examiner, which has been a free daily for several years.

The departure of the Daily News should be helpful to the Journal and Post, which cover the county closely. The Examiner still distributes in San Mateo County but closed its Burlingame and Redwood City offices a couple of years ago, insiders tell us.

The other paper in that area is the San Mateo County Times, a paid broadsheet owned by MediaNews Group, which also owns the Daily News.

"The two newspapers have been sharing the same local stories and ads for nearly three years," an announcement on the front of the Burlingame Daily News' last edition said. "The Times will continue to cover the Burlingame area, so our readers and advertisers will not be left without a good local newspaper. It's been a good run and we will miss covering news in your neighborhood, but look forward to reading all about it in the Times."

Four free dailies drop the AP

The three U.S. editions of Metro (New York, Philadelphia and Boston) and the independently-owned Denver (Colo.) Daily News have dropped the Associated Press wire service in the past month.

Cost was a factor for all four publications. AP charges member papers based on their circulation, which puts free dailies at a disadvantage since a 100,000 circulation free paper doesn't generate anywhere near the revenue of a 100,000 paid circulation paper.

Other wire services such as Reuters and Bloomberg cost much less and still deliver the big stories. However, AP does a better job at regional news and sports — it has bureaus in all 50 states and can use the copy of its approximately 1,700 member papers.

CNN plans to offer a wire service for newspapers this fall, and that might lead to more defections from AP.

AP has also become less attractive to free daily publishers because its stories are now transmitted on a real time basis on a variety of different platforms — TV, radio, the Internet, mobile phones and even TV screens at point-of-sale locations such as gas pumps. The challenge for free dailies is to provide news to readers that actually seems new.

Metro intends to fill its pages with more staff-written material as well as copy from its papers around the world.

“We believe that the future of our titles lies in producing as much of our own material as possible,” Tony Metcalf, editor in chief of Metro USA, said in a statement. “By relying more on our own reporting staff, we make a substantial saving while protecting the newspapers’ quality and improving relevance to our local markets.”

Starbucks ends ban of Vail paper

Starbucks has dropped its ban of one of Vail's two free daily newspapers, ending what had become a venti sized controversy at the Colorado ski resort.

The 25-year-old Vail Daily, owned by Swift Newspapers of Reno, Nev., struck an agreement with the local management of Starbucks to exclude the town's new free daily, the Vail Mountaineer, from its cafes.

When Mountaineer owner Jim Pavelich learned of the ban, he began to personally hand out copies of his paper in front of Starbucks, telling residents that his paper was under attack by two big corporations, Starbucks and Swift. He also told readers of the Mountaineer about the ban under a front page story with the headline "Corporate greed."

It didn't take more than a day or two for the ban to fall apart. Employees of Starbucks apparently felt sympathetic for Pavelich, who continued to pass out newspapers during a blinding snowstorm. According to the Mountaineer, they brought him hot coffee and gloves. Soon the ban was dropped.

The Vail Daily did not report on the Starbucks controversy. But in an April Fool's Day article, it attempted to make fun of the Mountaineer. The fictitious article claimed Pavelich had bought a stake in the Vail Daily because “I want to make sure they in fact do all those dastardly things I have been saying they are doing ... I’d sleep a little better if the rotten things I’m saying about them were actually true.”

A rollicking newspaper war in Vail

A battle between the two free dailies in the beautiful ski resort of Vail is getting downright ugly.

The Vail Daily, the town's 25-year-old chain-owned paper, has obtained a deal with the local Starbucks stores to keep the other paper out of those stores. The other paper, the Vail Mountaineer, fired back with a front page editorial slamming the deal, headlined "Corporate Greed."

The editorial played off of the idea that Starbucks is an out-of-town chain and the Vail Daily is owned by an out-of-town chain, Swift Newspapers of Reno, Nev. The man who sold the Vail Daily to Swift, however, is Jim Pavelich, who is the driving force behind the Mountaineer.

According to the Mountaineer, the Vail Daily also threatened two children's charities just prior to their fundraisers by threatening to withhold any support if the charities accepted free ads from the Mountaineer. The Mountaineer also claims that the Vail Daily is offering deep discounts to advertisers if they sign a nondisclosure agreement promising not to disclose their ad rates to other customers of the paper. The Vail Daily hasn't used its paper to respond to the allegations.

Denver daily shows how it is done

With the closure of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, the free daily in that city, the Denver Daily News, is making the most of the situation. It's headline Friday proclaimed "We're a 2-daily town." And the local TV media has picked up the story. Here's a link to the report on the local Fox affiliate. One correction to the item below. The Denver Daily News's circulation is 22,001. Given a pass-along rate of two or three per copy, and the DDN could be a very potent competitor to the city's remaining paid daily, The Denver Post.

Media got it wrong about Denver's newspapers

If you're like me, you've read a dozen stories by now about the death of Denver's Rocky Mountain News, which closed just short of its 150th birthday. The Rocky had been battling head to head with The Denver Post for more than a century. But every story I've seen has suggested that after the Rocky's final issue on Friday, Denver had become a one newspaper town.

Actually, Denver has a successful free daily newspaper that has been plugging along for eight years: The Denver Daily News, circulation 10,000.

It may not be a paid newspaper nor as large as the Post or Rocky, but it makes money and serves the community with news five days a week. The paper's distribution area includes the upscale Lodo neighborhood and most of downtown Denver.

Owner Jim Pavelich says newspapers need to be able to adapt to a changing business model if they are to expect to survive.

“Newspapers are not a dying industry, they’re a changing one,” Pavelich says, according to a story in his own paper. “It’s sad to see such an institution shut down, but we’ve expected it for years."

"That’s why we started the Denver Daily News eight years ago. The days of the big monopoly newspapers are done, but we think our model leaves room for growth," he explains.

CHANGES IN BOULDER, TOO

The closure of the Rocky means another change in ownership of Boulder's Colorado Daily, one of the earliest free daily newspaper. The Rocky's owner, E.W. Scripps Co., was partners with the Post's owner, MediaNews Group, in a number of publications in the Denver area including the Boulder Daily Camera and its Colorado Daily. With Scripps pulling out of Denver, it has turned over ownership of those papers to MediaNews, headed by Dean Singleton of Denver.

Singleton is quoted in the Post as saying he sees opportunities for for joint projects between the Post and the Boulder papers. For instance, instead of both the Post and Camera each assigning a reporter to cover the Denver Broncos, the papers will share the work of one reporter.

The Colorado Daily, which had been an independent newspaper from the early 1970s until about two years ago, now shares office space with the Boulder Daily Camera, which had long been its competitor.

The Colorado Daily was the student newspaper at the University of Colorado in Boulder until 1971 when the university's regents kicked it off campus due to its anti-Vietnam War views. It became a viable, independent community newspaper over the next couple of decades while never dropping its liberal politics. Now, ironically, it is headed Singleton, who was one of George W. Bush's major fundraisers.

New Portland, Maine free daily hits streets

The editor of the new Portland Daily Sun admits that on the paper's first day people asked him if he's lost his mind. "I joke with them and say 'You know newspapers are dead because you read it in the paper,'" told KCSH-TV. While large metro dailies are having problems, Robinson said that free dailies are holding their own and that Portland is an ideal market because it is a walkable town with lots of coffee houses and an issue-oriented population. "Portland is a news factory. And the reason it's a news factory is that the residents care." For more information, see the January 6 post below.

Santa Barbara free daily drops Monday

The Santa Barbara Daily Sound is dropping its Monday edition temporarily due to the economic slowdown. The move comes a little over 18 months after it opened a Saturday edition. So the Sound will operate five-days a week.

"A move of this calibre allows us to avoid layoffs and maintain the same level of content to which our readers and advertisers have become accustomed," said owner Jeramy Gordon. "We can’t just sit around pretending it’s business as usual and hope for a donation. Hard times call for tough decisions and responsible management."

Please note that I corrected this item. I said previously that the Sound's Saturday edition was less than a year old when it is actually a bit over 18 months old.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

The Vail (Colorado) Mountaineer printed a photo this week of Mr. Rogers, the late host of the PBS program "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood," in the middle of a front-page editorial about the business practices of the competing Vail Daily. Both are free daily newspapers. The Vail Daily started in the 1980s while the Mountaineer began last summer.

The editorial blasted the Vail Daily for allegedly offering advertisers 90% discounts if they didn't advertise in the Mountaineer. If the advertiser agreed, then they would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement to stop them from talking about the incredible deal they just got. Apparently the Vail Daily was worried those businesses receiving steep discounts might tip off the paper's regular advertisers, who would demand such discounts as well.

However, the editorial made no mention of Mr. Rogers even though his picture was placed in the middle of the page.
Here's the backstory: The current editor of the Vail Daily is Don Rogers who, we're told, bears a resemblance to the TV host.
Guess it's one of those jokes where you had to be there to get it.

Maybe Don Rogers should reply with an editorial welcoming the Vail Mountaineer to the neighborhood.

Anschutz to close Baltimore Examiner

Conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz (at left) has decided to close his Baltimore Examiner but keep open his other free dailies in San Francisco and Washington. All three are said to be losing money, but Baltimore was losing the most. About 90 people will be fired. The paper's final edition will come out Sunday, February 15.

When he opened the Baltimore Examiner in 2006, Anschutz's managers were convinced that they could build some synergy between it and the company's Washington newspaper. While 50 miles apart, they said the two could share the same printing plant while major advertisers could be convinced to spend money in both papers.

What they didn't understand is that Baltimore and Washington are culturally two very different cities. Washington, dominated by white-collar government workers and defense-industry types, has little in common with blue-collar Baltimore.

Moreover, it is widely assumed that Anschutz, who is active in Republican politics and fundamentalist Christian causes, sees his Washington Examiner as a way to influence policy in the nation's capital. On the other hand, Baltimore was expendable.

The closure of the Baltimore Examiner also shows Anschutz's pockets are not as deep as many had assumed due to his No. 36 ranking on Forbes' list of richest Americans. While 2008 was a bad year for most investors, things were far worse for Anschutz. For instance, he's a major shareholder in the Union Pacific Railroad, which lost 62% of its stock value in 2008 — about twice the percentage the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost during the same period. His stock in Regal Entertainment Group didn't do much better, dropping 43% of its value.

His attempt to establish presence in Hollywood also collapsed last year. The Los Angeles Times reported that Disney bailed out on the "Chronicles of Narnia" franchise that the studio had co-financed and co-produced with Anschutz's Walden Media because Anschutz got too greedy after the astounding success of the first Narnia film, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

As Anschutz's problems in Hollywood and Wall Street were escalating, he quietly put the Baltimore Examiner up for sale.

"Initially, we were optimistic that a qualified buyer could be found because of the strong assets of the newspaper, ranging from a hard working and professional group of employees to a local-centric focus that readers appreciated," Ryan McKibben, CEO of Anschutz's newspaper company Clarity Media, said in a letter to employees obtained by the Baltimore Sun. "We also felt that a buyer would be attracted to the market because the Baltimore Sun faced significant financial challenges. Over the course of three months, we worked with several potential local and national groups in the hopes of effecting a sale. But in the end, the economic dynamics that have ravaged the print media industry also prevented a sale of the Baltimore Examiner."

McKibben, in a different letter sent today to Examiner employees in Washington and San Francisco, said the company planned to keep those papers open and intends to invest in their websites.

"Specifically, we’ve invested in the future of the San Francisco Examiner by making substantial upgrades to your website — including a new design and vastly improved functionality that will be launched at the end of March 2009," McKibben wrote in a letter obtained by the San Francisco Press Club.

The web may be the Examiner's future. It has established a group of unpaid correspondents called "examiners" who are posting stories and columns on Examiner sites set up for every major city in the U.S. McKibben's statement suggests the company's focus going forward is on the Internet.

Free daily planned for Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine will soon be getting a free daily newspaper.

Mark Guerringue, publisher of the free Conway (N.H.) Daily Sun, said the Portland Daily Sun could start circulating late this month or next, according to a report in the Portland Press Herald.

The Sun's editor will be Curtis Robinson, a veteran of free daily newspapers in Vail and Aspen, Colorado. More recently Robinson was a public affairs professional in Washington, D.C.

In addition to Robinson, the paper will have two reporters. It will publish five days a week. The printing will take place in Conway, which is about 50 miles from Portland as the crow flies.

The Portland Daily Sun will join a growing network of free dailies that began in 1989 with the founding of the Conway Daily Sun. The other papers are the Berlin Daily Sun and Laconia Daily Sun.

In Portland, the Daily Sun will go up against the 147-year-old Press Herald and its Maine Sunday Telegram. They're owned by the Blethen family, better known as the majority owners of the Seattle Times. But the Blethens are negotiating to sell the Portland papers to an investor group that includes former defense secretary and Maine senator William Cohen.

Aspen newspaper eliminates Sunday edition

With all of the cities struggling to hold on to just one daily newspaper, Aspen, Colorado is unique — this silver mining town cum star-studded ski resort of 5,804 residents supports two separately owned daily newspapers.

The Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News, both free dailies, have been battling each other for 20 years in the playground that Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner, Jack Nicholson, Antonio Banderas and Kate Hudson call home.

The competition keeps ad rates low and keeps reporters on their toes, worrying that they might be scooped by the other paper. And, after 20 years, one would assume the papers have been profitable, or why would their owners continue to fight for so long?

On December 31, the Times announced that it was eliminating its Sunday edition but would continue to publish the other six days of the week. Publisher Jenna Weatherred, in a note to readers, said Sunday was the paper's "least profitable edition" of the week.

Not un-profitable, but "least profitable."

At the same time, the chain that owns the Times, Swift Newspapers, pulled the plug on weekly newspapers in two other communities as well as a regional Spanish-language paper. And the Times publisher said she has reduced the staff of her paper by 20 percent, though exact numbers weren't given.

"My hope is that, once this recession turns around and things feel more secure in the valley, we will be able to bring back the Sunday daily and our small community weekly papers," Weatherred said.

Each of the papers are tabloid-sized yet have a strikingly grey layout with small headlines and lots of copy. On many inside pages, copy will run for 14 inches without so much as a subhead or pull-quote interrupting the column of grey. The Times appears to have a few more photos sprinkled among its columns.

The staff boxes of the papers show that each has a newsroom of 12 to 15 people. And though Aspen might seem like a small town, they have plenty of news to cover. Last week, for instance, a 71-year-old former miner killed himself after he forced the evacuation of Aspen's downtown when he planted bombs at four banks and a drinking hole in an extortion plot. The incident forced the town to postpone its New Year's Eve fireworks display, a favorite of tourists.

The would-be bomber, as he was preparing his explosives, left a hand-written letter-to-the-editor at the Times reminiscent of another Aspen resident, the late "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Given the frequent controversies and celebrity sightings in Aspen, the attempted bombing probably was just another day at the office for the journalists at the Daily News and Times.

Aspen, a town with a lot of news, is fortunate to have two newspapers to cover it.

Leaving your heart in San Francisco

Tony Bennett sang about losing one's heart in San Francisco, and the publishers of a free daily in that famed city by the bay may soon feel that way. The (San Francisco) Daily Post announced this week that it is pulling out of San Francisco. The paper moved its offices to Palo Alto, a toney university town about 30 miles south of San Francisco, about six months ago. But they still continued to distribute in San Francisco while they essentially built a new paper in Palo Alto. The publishers know something about the market in Palo Alto. They're Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who started the Palo Alto Daily News in 1995 and sold it in 2005 to Knight Ridder for $25 million.

An idea for Detroit's newspapers

Detroit's two newspapers announced Tuesday that they are stopping home delivery four days a week and will only sell a scaled-down version of their papers on those days in racks and stores. (Read the AP story. Photo by the AP.)

The move is a cost-cutting measure as the two papers struggle to survive. "We have to change the way we deliver that news — not just in subtle ways, but in fundamental ways," said David Hunke, Detroit Free Press publisher and chief executive of the partnership with the Detroit News.

If he's serious about fundamental change, he should consider making one or both of the papers free on the days they're not delivered to homes. While the bean counters might be horrified at losing single-copy revenue, those quarters would be replaced with dollars from new advertising. Free papers reach a much broader audience than paid papers. The pass-along rate is higher, meaning advertisers get more bang for their buck. Free papers tend to reach the younger readers advertisers desire.

To prove all of that, make one of the papers free and keep the other paid. Run them with separate management teams. After a year, see which one is ahead, and convert the other to that format.

Ads in free dailies work -- sometimes too well!

An advertiser in the free daily AMNewYork has been arrested after a scam in the paper was too successful. The New York Post reports:

Raadiya James, 22, is accused of buying an ad in AM New York on Dec. 2 that mimicked an official announcement from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development offering cheap apartments on West 57th Street.

In exchange for a $5 application fee, the home-seekers were offered a shot at studios for $538 and two-bedrooms for $823.

Over the next few days, more than 1,000 money orders poured into a post-office box.

But authorities picked up on the alleged scam and when James came to pick up the loot, she was arrested.

Rapid turnover in publishers in Vail, Colo.

It's not often that a newspaper goes through two publishers in one month. But that's what happened this month at the Vail Daily.

Steve Gall, who had headed the paper for 19 months, resigned "to pursue other opportunities," the Vail Daily announced on Dec. 4.

He was replaced by Steve Pope, who was the paper's publisher in 2005 and early 2006 before he was promoted to a regional management job with parent company Swift Newspapers. Then on Tuesday, Pope gave notice so he could take the publisher's job at the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Pope's move to the Colorado Springs' paper is a bit of a head-scratcher because the publisher's slot has been open since August. Why take the Vail job only to quit two weeks later and take the Colorado Springs job instead? Why not take the Colorado Springs job in early December and not bother with Vail?

The official line is that the Colorado Springs job is a big step up for Pope. But we hear that the Vail Daily isn't a fun place to work anymore compared to the first time he was publisher. The founder of the Vail Daily, Jim Pavelich, who sold the paper in the early 1990s to Swift, has started a new paper, the Vail Mountaineer, which is taking away business from the Daily. The Vail Daily has responded by offering advertisers steep discounts — as much as 90 percent — if they agree not to advertise in the new paper. But the strategy may backfire because Swift loses money on the discounted rates.

By the way, at the Gazette Pope will succeed Scott McKibben, who was the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner when it was purchased by billionaire oilman Phil Anschutz.

Metro U.S. did better in 2008 than 2007

Has Metro finally found the right formula for U.S. audiences? This year the paper has had a successful redesign and appears to be attracting more mainstream advertisers — major department stores instead of fly-by-night 1-800 ads. Metro is growing its real estate sections at a time when real estate isn't supposed to be doing that well. And Metro seems to have more ads than in the past and probably a higher yield per page.

"Metro U.S.'s performance in 2008 is very promising and has improved a lot compared to 2007," Metro chief executive Per Mikael Jensen (right) told Free-Daily.com in an e-mail Wednesday. "We really feel that we are embraced by readers and advertisers.

"So whilst everyone else seems to have a hard time, we have seen big improvements," Jensen wrote. "Our base of advertisers and our yield per page has, as you point out, been increasing during the year."

A year ago, there was talk that Metro was going to close or sell its three U.S. editions (New York, Philadephia and Boston). Jensen put the papers on the market, but there were no takers. Of course the financial meltdown has halted all lending for mergers and acquisitions, so even if somebody was interested, they couldn't get the financing.

Now Jensen tells us, "I’m very sure that Metro has a great future in U.S."