Six free dailies make progress in S. Korea

The Korean Times, in a wrap up on the news business in S. Korea, reports that the country now has six free tabloids, which are encroaching on the readership base of the traditional print newspapers. "The six free dailies, distributed around subway stations, dominated the commuting scenes with their combined issues estimated to be over 2 million," the Times wrote.

Fired editor to lead Baltimore Examiner

Billionaire Phil Anschutz, who owns free dailies in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., is launching another one this spring in Baltimore, and its new editor will be Frank J. Keegan, a former editor of the Connecticut Post, according to a report by Nick Madigan of the Baltimore Sun. In Connecticut, reporter Eric Friedman of the Fairfield County Weekly confirmed that Keegan was fired by the Post, a daily published in Bridgeport, Conn., in mid-April after working there about three years. The Baltimore Examiner will be the third in Anschutz's chain of free papers and he plans to expand to dozens of other American cities.

Palo Alto Daily News publishers ride into sunset

Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, co-publishers of the Palo Alto Daily News and its five sister daily newspapers, are stepping down from the company they started 10 years ago. Knight Ridder bought the Daily News in Feburary and the two publishers stayed on during the transition. KR also asked them to start free dailies in other U.S. cities. But in November, a group of shareholders demanded the sale of KR, which put all corporate expansion plans on hold for at least a year. As a result, Price and Pavelich decided to leave KR to move forward with their own newspaper projects outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Palo Alto Daily News has become a model for free daily newspapers. It was profitable nine months after it started. It created a format that numerous other free dailies have copied. It's penetration of the local advertising market was breathtaking, with issues that had 150-200 display ads per day. The paper's page counts ranged from 60 to 120 per day. And the paper pulled down as many awards as long-established daily competitors, including two consecutive statewide awards for editorial writing. Reports by the Certified Audit of Circulations showed the paper had a return rate of less than 2 percent. Staffers reported that people would walk several blocks to get their copy of "The Daily" each morning.

theSun rises in Malaysia

Emily Tan of "theSun," Malaysia's first and only free national newspaper, reports that her paper will boost its print run and circulation to 200,000 copies in 2006 from 150,000 copies to meet the increasing demand. "The 30% increase reflects theSun's confidence in its free newspaper model, which is taking the world by storm."

Second free daily coming to Prague

Ringier, a major Czechslovakian publisher, is planning to launch its own free daily to compete with Metro, which launched in 2003. According to this publication, Chezh Business Weekly, "The newspaper, whose name is still a secret, will come out five days a week and mainly target young, urban readers from the Prague metropolitan area. It will have an initial print run of 250,000 copies. "

Chicago's Red Streak free daily dies

The AP provides an obituary for the Red Streak, a free daily in Chicago put out by the paid circulation Chicago Sun-Times. The Red Streak lost a three-year-long head-to-head battle with another free daily, the Red Eye, published by the rival Chicago Tribune. AP reporter Dave Carpenter writes "A copycat mission from the start, it was launched in 2002 the same day as long-planned RedEye and with the same focus on local entertainment, sports, fashion and celebrity gossip. But the company with more resources prevailed." Here's a list of free dailies in metro markets. The list apparently doesn't include papers such as the Palo Alto Daily News.

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).

Paid newspapers will become the 'niche'

Metro chief executive Pelle Tornberg predicts that over the long term, free papers will dominate and paid papers will mainly be purchased on weekend. "If you apply the pay TV and free TV [model] to the newspaper industry, then the paid-for newspapers probably have to accept living with smaller circulation and probably increasing their prices, increasing the exclusivity," Tornberg was quoted as saying.

Free daily 'Dirt' switches to weekly schedule

The Scripps-owned Boulder Daily Camera is changing its youth-oriented daily "Dirt" from a daily to a weekly, effective Dec. 22. Publisher Greg Anderson said the decision was based on cost efficiency. The move comes two months after Scripps bought the free Colorado Daily, another Boulder paper.

Metro reports sales gains, overall losses

Metro International's three U.S. dailies — in New York, Boston and Philadelphia — jumped 32% in the third quarter from $5.8 million to $7.7 million. The jump was fueled mostly by the launch of its New York City edition in May 2004. However, sales in Philly were up by 10% from last year.

Still, the three papers lost $2.6 million for a margin of minus 25%. "Metro New York halved its operating loss year-on-year in the third quarter," it said.

Metro said its Boston paper, which is now 49% owned by The New York Times Co., "is strengthening after a disappointing start to the year." In September, the paper reported record monthly sales and operating profits, it said.

Metro New York recorded sales records in May, June, and September, the company said, with third-quarter revenues up by more than 50% from the first quarter.

Metro said its three U.S. editions have an average daily circulation of almost 700,000, "making Metro the fifth largest general interest newspaper on the Eastern Seaboard and the sixth largest nationally."

This week, Metro launched its 59th daily, a national paper circulating in eight additional cities in Spain.

A personal note

Two weeks ago I suffered a stroke that has affected my ability to speak. It is funny that God would decide to shut off my mouth considering that I made a living in the 1960s and 70s as a newscaster, and as a salesman in the 80s and 90s. I'm also having trouble with my balance. My doctor says I need a wheelchair, but I am not about to go there. I have begun sessions of physiotherapy and speech therapy. I will continue to engage in the hobbies I love — painting, walking, reading and writing this blog. This experience has been terrifying and shocking at the same time. But I am determined not to let this stroke ruin my life. Still, I probably won't be calling you anytime soon. Feel free to e-mail me at free-daily@hotmail.com.

Early free daily sold to Scripps newspapers

The Colorado Daily was a student newspaper at the University of Colorado at Boulder that was booted off of campus in 1971 because of its anti-Vietnam war coverage. The independence caused the paper's editors to spread their wings and start covering the entire city of Boulder, not just the campus. The Colorado Daily became the first free daily newspaper. And it explains why so many other free dailies have sprouted up in Colorado over the years -- in Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, Telluride, Steamboat Springs, Douglas County and even Denver.

In 2001, the Colorado Daily found itself in serious money trouble and the paper, controlled by a non-profit board, was sold to former Detroit Free Press editor and Lee Enterprises executive Randy Miller. And now, Miller has sold the paper to the Scripps newspaper company.

Ironically, the Colorado Daily has always been a hard left-wing, neo-socialist newspaper. Now it's controlled by a conservative newspaper chain.

Moreover, the Colorado Daily is now owned by the parent company of its crosstown rival, the Boulder Daily Camera, and Denver's Rocky Mountain News.

• Colorado Daily reports it has been sold to Scripps
• A history of the Colorado Daily
• Westword: Mum's the word about Colorado Daily sale

Washington Express 'doing great financially'

We picked up the following article from the Baltimore Daily Record about the Washington Express, the fred daily the Washington Post has launched to fend off other free dailies that might enter the market. Since we can't find a Web link to this article, here it is below:

"Express," a free, tabloid-style daily newspaper targeted at Washington-area commuters, is expanding in the face of dropping circulation at its parent paper, The Washington Post.

Express, launched a year ago in part to encourage 18- to 34-year- olds to read the Post, has added 25,000 copies per day, bringing its daily circulation total to 175,000. Company executives said they will look to distribute more of the papers at college campuses and other places with heavy foot traffic around Washington in coming months.

"The paper is doing great financially. We've brought in a lot of new [advertisers] that weren't or had stopped using the Post," Arnie Applebaum, general manager of the Express, said. "The cool thing is that many of the readers didn't read the Washington Post much beforehand. We've been trying to grow the audience for the Post."

But the success of Express, which embeds references to the Post in stories from The Associated Press and other wire services, has not spilled over to its parent paper.

In the six months leading up to the launch of Express, the Post saw a year-over-year circulation drop of 1.9 percent for its daily and 1.1 percent for its Sunday edition, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

During the same six months this year, average circulation of the Post's daily edition declined 3.3 percent to 727,100 copies - a loss of more than 24,000 readers. The Sunday paper's average circulation dropped 2.6 percent during the time to slightly more than 1 million, according to the filings.

The trend lines have led some to question Express's effect on Post readership.

"We've argued previously that The Post's large geographic footprint creates the potential for disproportionate declines as it faces a lot of competition on the periphery," Deutsche Bank securities analyst Paul Ginocchio wrote in a research note. "But another open issue is whether Express - is cannibalizing The Post."

Post Publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. in May told the New York Times the popularity of Express and washingtonpost.com had been siphoning readers from the Post.

Washington Post representatives did not return calls for comment.

Sandy K. Yielding, marketing director for Express, said the research shows Express readers are turning to the Post.

"We feel, through research, that it is working, she said. It's been looked at quite heavily and we have not ascertained that Express has caused [the drop in Post circulation] at all."

Applebaum pointed to the locations in which Express is distributed and the Post is sold.

"Our circulation department reports that at those locations -- more Posts are selling at the boxes now than before [Express] was published, he said. There is absolutely nothing to point to the fact that Express is cannibalizing the Post."

The circulation drop at the Post is part of a larger trend that began in 1990 when the average daily circulation of U.S. newspapers began declining 1 percent annually.

In response, a number of newspapers have launched free dailies in an attempt to lure younger readers.

Only around 40 percent of people age 18 to 34 read a paper on weekdays, compared to about 70 percent for people age 45 to 64, according to Scarborough Research, which tracks consumer habits.

Copyright 2004 Dolan Media Newswires

New free daily stops another one cold in its tracks

The new Berkeley, Calif.-based East Bay Daily News, an off-shoot of the successful Palo Alto Daily News, appears to have upset the plans by MediaNews owner Dean Singleton and San Francisco Bay Area editor David Burgin to start a free daily of their own in Berkeley called the Daily Flash. Dave Price of the Palo Alto Daily News says his company has been looking at the East Bay for years -- in deed, the URLs registrations he has for Berkeley Daily News and East Bay Daily News date back to 2001 -- but one wonders whether the prospect of a rival free daily in Berkeley got Price and partner Jim Pavelich energized to rush the East Bay Daily News into production. This story by Michael Stoll of the web site "Grade The News" says Burgin was planning the Daily Flash for a year and a half before Price and Pavelich beat him to the punch.

Certainly the two free papers would have been different animals. The Daily Flash was designed for the youth market while Price and Pavelich are shooting for more of a community newspaper feel, trying to reach all segments.

Free papers sprout up all over the country

The newspaper brokerage firm of Dirks, Van Essen & Murray wrote this detailed report on the growing free daily industry. It's their business to know about such papers since they represent buyers and sellers of publications. The chart at the end of the piece is the most comprehensive list of free dailies in the United States that we've seen. It was accurate as of early 2005.

WaPo profiles Examiner owner Anschutz

The Washington Post, perhaps fearing Phil Anschutz's entry into Washington's newspaper market, has printed this profile of the Denver billionaire. Anschutz bought the San Francisco Examiner last year and some observers have speculated that he plans to start free dailies in other citees.

Some quotes from the article:

• "In 1992, Anschutz contributed $10,000 to a group called Colorado Family Values, to support an amendment to the state constitution that invalidated state and local laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Anschutz's money helped pay for an ad campaign that said such anti-bias laws gave gays and lesbians 'special rights.' The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the amendment as discriminatory."

• "In 2002, New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer sued Anschutz and four telecom executives, accusing Anschutz of making $1.5 billion in "unjust enrichment revenue," including the sale of initial-public-offering stock Anschutz received in the hopes he would steer investment banking business to Citigroup Inc. Anschutz and Spitzer reached an agreement in which Anschutz admitted no wrongdoing and later paid $4.4 million to law schools and charities, and Spitzer agreed to drop the suit."

• "Anschutz persuaded a movie studio to pay him $100,000 to film Adair putting out his well fire for a 1967 John Wayne film called 'Hellfighters.' The fire was put out and Anschutz saved his business."

• The billionaire wants to change people's way of thinking: "In a rare public speech in February, reported by the Wall Street Journal, Anschutz told the audience: 'My friends think I'm a candidate for a lobotomy, and my competitors think I'm naive or stupid or both. But you know what? I don't care. If we can make some movies that have a positive effect on people's lives and on our culture, that's enough for me.'"

• "Anschutz is an active Republican donor. Since 1996, he, his companies and members of his family have given more than $500,000 in campaign contributions to GOP candidates and committees."

• "However, none of these scandals has yet to tarnish Anschutz's reputation ..."

But in San Francisco, they have an idea of what Anschutz is up to. "When he bought the Examiner, we thought, 'What the hell is this guy doing?' Its business prospects were not phenomenal," said Tim Redmond, executive editor of the liberal San Francisco Bay Guardian. "When we found out who he was, we were nervous he was going to bring his Christian-evangelical politics to San Francisco."

Anschutz has supported socially conservative causes. In 1987, Anschutz's family foundation gave Focus on the Family founder James Dobson an award for his "contributions to the American Family." According to its Web site, the Denver-based group works to "counter the media-saturating message that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable" and one of its policy experts called legalized abortion an example of when "Satan temporarily succeeds in destroying God's creation."

California paper puts out an 'Extra!'

Talk about a throw back to the 1920s and 30s! A free daily newspaper in Northern California published an extra (as in "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!") minutes after the verdict in the Scott Peterson murder case came in. Extras were common before broadcast journalism emerged, but they're unheard of today. The last one we heard of was in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated, and morning papers wanted to compete with evening papers on the story. The extra was printed by the Redwood City Daily News, which is part of the five-paper Palo Alto Daily News group. According to the AP, the Extra was handed out by Daily News employees within 15 minutes of the verdict. Extras were distributed in Redwood City, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, San Mateo and Burlingame. The editor of the group is Brian Bothun and the publishers are Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, longtime innovators in the free daily field.

Third U.S. Metro paper opens today in NYC

Newspapers have been published in New York City since 1725. But the first free paper, amNewYork, started seven months ago on October 10. Today the second free daily started. Metro New York is part of the Swedish chain of more than 50 papers which includes editions in Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto. Like amNewYork, Metro will be circulated on subway platforms, on the streets and through news racks. In the past seven months, amNewYork's circulation has jumped from 150,000 to 209,000 (audited). Publisher Russel Pergament says that since the audit, the circulation is up to 221,000 copies a day. Metro has got a long way to go. Both papers will be striving to reach the 18- to 34-year-old reader who has largely stopped reading newspapers and is coveted by advertisers. Metro New York's publisher is Henry Scott, who launched the NY Times's @times, a site on America Online.

Dallas: AM Journal closes, Quick wins

The war between free dailies in Dallas has ended after five months. The A.M. Journal Express, started November 12 by Jeremy Halbreich and his American Consolidated Media, published its last issue yesterday, April 30. When plans for the A.M. Journal Express were revealed in September, Belo's Dallas Morning News swiftly created its own free daily newspaper, called Quick, which hit the streets two weeks earlier than the Journal Express. The Dallas Business Journal says Halbreich's investors decided to pull the plug. The Journal had 26 staffers who will reportedly be offered jobs within American Consolidated Media. Halbreich complained in the Dallas media about "overly hostile" actions by the Morning News that included confrontations with A.M. Journal's distributors and threats against advertisers. Meanwhile, the Morning News says Quick is gaining acceptance with readers as it grows.

Metro coming to New York

Metro International, the Swedish company with 34 free dailies worldwide including Boston and Philadelphia, plans to launch in New York in May. The launch was delayed because amNew York hit the market first in 2003. Metro NY's publisher will be Henry Scott, who worked in new media at The New York Times and also was president of Out magazine. The editor will be Stefano Hatfield, who wrote for Advertising Age and was Ad Age Global's editorial director.

More about the Frisco Examiner sale

Look, I'm confused as everybody else about why a conservative Christian has bought a struggling newspaper in San Francisco, a city that Christians might consider a modern day sodom and gomorrah. Tim Porter, a respected journalist in Northern California, has this view:

Anschutz is politically and religiously conservative, and has financially supported measures and organizations that are anti-gay and crusade against "overly sexualized" magazines, the Chronicle reported. Could it be that Anschultz wants to establish a conservative media voice in San Francisco to cater to that part of the city who is not thrilled, for example, to see gay couples lining up by the thousands to married in City Hall?

Bob Starzel, a longtime executive for Anschutz and now chairman of the Examiner, hints at this when says, as the Chronicle put it, that the paper "will concentrate on local news, business and sports coverage, with an emphasis on neighborhoods."


"People in San Francisco live in separate neighborhoods, but to a degree they do not know each other that well," said Starzel, who lives in the outer Richmond district.


"Neighborood coverage" is a code phrase used by San Francisco's conservatives -- and, yes, there are some, enough, in fact, to rise up occasionally and elect one of their own mayor -- when they decry front-page stories about gay rights or the homeless. Conservatives, of the moderate variety, are generally thought to represent about a third of the San Francisco electorate and most live on the west side of the city, Starzell's neighborhood.

Perhaps Anschutz intends to take one of journalism's core tenets and give voice to those San Francisco conservatives, who regularly complain they are voiceless in the Chronicle.

Anschutz was waged a proxy campaign for decades against gays. What better place is there to make that battle more personal through the pages of a newspaper than in San Francisco?

So let's say, for the sake of argument, that Frisco is two-thirds liberal and one-third conservative. The Chronicle would get the two-thirds of the liberal readership and the Examiner would get the rest. Each might be able to survive. Who knows? It all depends on how a newspaper is edited -- if a liberal paper is interesting, everybody will read it. If a conservative paper is interesting, everybody will read that too, though the liberals will deny reading it.

Conservative billionaire buys San Francisco paper

Conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz (pictured; AP photo) has bought the San Francisco Examiner from the Florence Fang family for a reported $20 million. The Fang family bought the paper in 2000 from the Hearst Corporation, which sold it in order to buy the San Francisco Chronicle, the morning paper it had prized for many years. The Hearst's first choice would have been to close the Examiner, but the political powers that be insisted on two newspapers in Frisco, so the Examiner stumbles on. It's unknown what Anschutz will do with the Examiner, but his politics are conservative and anti-gay, which could mean trouble in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Same-sex marriages appear decidedly out of step with values openly espoused by Anschutz. In the 1990s, he backed Colorado's Amendment 2, the highly contentious measure that sought to restrict Colorado's cities from adopting civil-rights protections specifically for gays and lesbians. The issue reached national proportions, with opponents boycotting business with the state.

According to published reports, Anschutz donated $10,000 to Colorado for Family Values, backers of the amendment, during the heated final days of the campaign. The amendment passed in 1992 but was later overturned by the state's Supreme Court. The media watchdog group Morality in Media, established in 1962 and based in New York, reportedly has received generous support from Anschutz for its crusades against pornography and obscenity in magazines, movies, television and other outlets.

The nonprofit, interfaith group advocates letter-writing campaigns to government agencies and company executives in its efforts to stamp out material it deems inappropriate. Morality in the Media has made news for, among other reasons, its high-profile statements calling Cosmopolitan (owned by The Chronicle's parent firm, The Hearst Corp.) and Glamour magazines "overly sexualized" and its support for Internet filters on computers in public libraries.

Whether Anschutz will discard his morals in San Francisco, or use his paper to change the community, is an unknown at this point. Much of San Francisco's business community, including people in ad agencies and ad-buyers, are gay. It will be interesting to see if they read up on the Examiner's new owner or just watch his people's Powerpoint presentations without asking questions.