There's a story in
Editor & Publisher about the idea of creating a trade association for free daily newspapers. Henry Scott, the launch publisher of Metro New York, is testing the water about such an association as he prepares for a June 18-19 conference of free daily execs in St. Petersburg, Fla. He argues correctly that free dailies share some common issues, such as.
1. Some cities make it difficult to circulate free papers.
2. Some free dailies want their distribution to be measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which currently measures the readership of paid papers but won't touch free publications. The hope is that if your paper is audited by ABC, national advertisers would suddenly find your publication and place big ads.
As free dailies become a bigger player in the media business, it will be interesting to see what other issues such an association will take on.
