Metro to add 17 cities in Sweden

Metro, the European free daily publisher, plans to begin distributing 17 free dailies in 17 more Swedish cities, according to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Chicago Red Streak ends Thursday

The Chicago Sun-Times will publish the final edition of its youth-oriented tabloid, Red Streak, this coming Thursday, December 22.

The free paper, launched more than three years ago in response to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye, which went from paid to free in September. Soon thereafter Sun-Times Publishers John Cruickshank said he was considering closing down Red Streak.

“They’ve conceded they can’t sell newspapers to young people,” Cruickshank said. “From our perspective, we just didn’t need to do it any longer ... The battle was just too expensive to go on.”

He declined to disclose the cost to the Sun-Times of Red Streak’s three-year run. But he said there would be no staff layoffs as a result of folding the publication.

RedEye Publisher Brad Moore was not immediately available for comment.

Metro reports readership is up 22%

Metro reports that it's readership is up 22 percent compared to last year, and that it now reaches 18.5 million people a day. The survey also shows that, unlike paid newspapers, 74 percent of Metro's readers are under 50 years of age. "This survey demonstrates the popularity of the Metro concept especially among young and urban professionals," said CEO Pelle Törnberg (photo at left).