New editors, publishers in Colorado

Swift Newspapers, owner of several free dailies in Colorado, announced today that it has appointed Valerie Smith as the publisher of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. She will replace Jim Hyatt, who became publisher in May and now has left the company, according to the rival Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Smith has worked for Swift since 1993 and was publisher of its Glenwood Springs Post Independent and associate publisher of its Vail Daily.

Speaking about the Vail Daily, it has a new editor — its old editor, Don Rogers. Rogers left the Vail paper last year to head up another Swift paper, the Record-Courier in Gardnerville, Nev. But he's back in Vail, possibly because the Vail Daily is facing new competition in the form of the Vail Mountaineer, a free daily started by the founder of the Vail Daily, Jim Pavelich. Pavelich sold the Vail Daily in 1993 and decided to start publishing again because he didn't like the way his old paper was covering the news. Rogers, who was editor in Vail from 1999 to 2007, also said there was another reason for returning to Vail. He said his family had not yet moved to Nevada, and that he was returning often to visit with them. "I got the chance to experience the Daily more as a regular reader, and I think that gave me valuable insights that I would not have from the inside. And working in a new place has given me fresh perspective," he said in a Vail Daily article.

Rogers will replace Alex Miller, who is moving to Summit County to be the editor of the Summit Daily News. It's also a Swift paper.

In Boulder, the Colorado Daily — the oldest free daily in the U.S. — has a new editor. Matt Sebastian was previously city editor of Boulder's paid paper, the Daily Camera. In the past, the Colorado Daily and Daily Camera were rivals, but today they're owned by the same company (Prairie Mountain Publishing, a joint venture with Denver-based MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post) and operate out of the same building. "The two papers operate independent newsrooms but share some content, with editors at each publication selecting the stories that best suits their readership," said a story in the Camera announcing Sebastian's appointment.

California city removes free paper's racks

In the 1960s, the free speech movement's heart and soul was in San Francisco and surrounding Bay Area communities like Berkeley. 

Things have changed, however. On Aug. 13th, the city of Palo Alto hauled away 27 newsracks of a new free daily newspaper, the Daily Post. The city contends the newspaper violated its 1998 newsrack ordinance, which apparently limits the number of spaces newspapers can have in Palo Alto's downtown area. 

Palo Alto's downtown is dominated by University Avenue, a Rodeo Drive-like shopping destination. 

The city regulates the newsracks in the area and forces them to use modular boxes. But when the Post asked for spaces in these racks, the city dragged its feet. So the paper's publishers, Jim Pavelich and Dave Price (who started the Palo Alto Daily News in 1995 and sold it for $25 million to Knight Ridder in 2005), decided to put free-standing racks throughout the downtown area in defiance of the ordinance -- or at least until the city could give them spaces.

The city might have even looked the other way until it fixed its ordinane except for the phone calls it got from the politically connected publisher of a weekly newspaper — Palo Alto's mayor is a lawyer whose firm represents the weekly — who demanded the removal of the Post's racks. 

In a horrendous move, city workers grabbed the Post's newsracks off the streets and put them into a flatbed truck. 

Within hours, however, the Post put racks back on the street. But this time Editor and Co-Publisher Dave Price vowed that if the city touched the racks again, they would have to arrest him first and throw him in jail. 

He even posed for this photo on top of a space where one of his racks was removed, but other free-standing racks were allowed to stay. The incident blew up into a major controversy and a day later, the city offered the Post roughly the same number of racks as its competitors. The Post printed a story on Monday, Aug. 18, saying the controversy was over.

Somebody is having fun in LA

Are there plans to start a free daily in Los Angeles? After all, it is the last of the three major markets without one. A classified ad on Craigslist (now withdrawn) has been followed by this Web site at www.thefreedaily.com/Home_Page.html.

Our first reaction? Guess you've heard of clip art photos!

Here's the text of the site:

We are going to launch a FREE daily newspaper here in Los Angeles. We will also be developing a companion website. The initial circulation will be between 200,000 and 350,000 daily M-F, no Saturday edition and a 500,000 circulation Sunday edition which will be available nationally.

Hey, that sounds like billionaire oilman Phil Anschutz's plans in San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington. Only problem is that his business model hasn't worked. It failed so miserably that he just slashed his circulation by 40 percent after struggling for three years to make his papers work.

It will be distributed free of charge throughout the Los Angeles market through alliances with key retailers and vendor box distribution.

LA is the nation's biggest market geographically. Unless you're the LA Times, you won't be able to pull that off.

Additionally you'll be able to subcribe to it and receive home delivery for about $50 a year.

We are looking for writers, web developers, photographers, editors (who can write), designers and seasoned sales professionals. If you have experience here in LA we know who you are, if you do not but are looking to break in, fine.


We've secured office space in the heart of the city.

Guess that means you've got a lease.

When we launch, our staff will likely number between 75 and 100.

Right now we are seeking people with ideas who are willing to share them in strict confidence. We have our own ideas, we aren't looking to steal yours but if we are on the same page perhaps a partnership was meant to be. Impress us, you may be considered for what will likely be the most coveted media jobs in the country.

We've sent a couple of e-mails to those purporting to start a free daily in Los Angeles. No answer.

LA Observed says that one of the writers leaving the LA Times responded to the new paper's Craigslist ad and asked "who are you?" She got back this reply:

"Who are you?"

"TFD Management team."

"Right now we are the asking the questions - you are the 1500th respondent ..."

The Web site for this supposed newspaper says management will "reach out to interested parties" before Labor Day.

Free daily apparently planned in L.A.

With the Los Angeles Times shedding staff and cutting back coverage, this could be a good time to start a free daily in Los Angeles. Here's an ad that popped up on Craigslist. We're trying to find out who placed it. If you have any information, our e-mail address is free-daily@hotmail.com.

NEW FREE DAILY NEWSPAPER LAUNCHING - in search of leadership team (Mid Wilshire)

Reply to: gigs-774473716@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-07-29, 7:13AM PDT

We are going to launch a FREE daily newspaper here in Los Angeles. We will also be developing a companion website. The initial circulation will be between 200,000 and 350,000 daily M-F, no Saturday edition and a 500,000 circulation Sunday edition which will be available nationally.

It will be distributed free of charge throughout the Los Angeles market through alliances with key retailers and vendor box distribution. Additionally you'll be able to subcribe to it and receive home delivery for $50 a year.

The financing is secure and the ownership (comprised of some remarkable wealthy Angelenos you probably have heard of) is eager to assemble a small idea team that may be comprised of some of our intial hires. The ownership team comes from a wide array of businesses exclusive of traditional media. So...

The goal is to make the paper sustainable within 30 months. Employees will profit share and the company will never be sold and never turned public without a majority vote of the employees.

We are looking for writers, web developers, photographers, editors (that can write), designers and seasoned sales professionals. If you have experience here in LA we know who you are, if you do not but are looking to break in, fine.

We've secured office space in the heart of the city. When we launch, our staff will likely number between 75 and 100.

Right now we are seeking people with ideas who are willing to share them in strict confidence. You will not be paid for this time now but, you may be considered for what will likely be the most coveted media jobs in the country.

The interest list is forming, are you in? Send us your resume, we'll let you know if we want clips.

Your application will be CONFIDENTIAL and we are an EOE.

Location: Mid Wilshire
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: no pay
PostingID: 774473716

Quick in Dallas switches to weekly

A.H. Belo Corp. plans to lay off 14 percent of the staff of the Dallas Morning News and convert its 100,000 circulation free daily, Quick, into a weekly. Belo says its total sales are off 21 percent this year which includes a 12 percent drop in online sales. It hopes to cut $50 million company-wide.

Quick will now focus more intensely focus on the entertainment interests of young single adults and drop much of the hard news coverage the paper was providing.

The move comes as the Dallas Morning News is about to start a free 16-page broadsheet newspaper called Briefing that is being thrown on the driveways of non-subscribers in high-income areas. When Briefing was announced, rumors about the fate of Quick began swirling. Just this week, the start date of Briefing was changed from Aug. 22 to Aug. 27.

The Dallas Morning News launched Quick on Nov. 10, 2003 in an attempt to head off another free daily planned in Dallas, the A.M. Journal Express. The Journal Express lasted six months. In the four-and-a-half years since then, Quick apparently wasn't able to become a strong enough asset that it could escape the budget ax.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this posting said Briefing had already started, which is incorrect.

Metro interested in U.S. network of papers

The chief executive of Metro International, Per Mikael Jensen (pictured), says he's interested in forming a network with other U.S. free daily publishers to attract national ad dollars. He told free-daily.com in an e-mail:

A national sales-network could attract national advertisers. The U.S. is very different to Europe in the fact that U.S. doesn't really have any national newspaper at all. The largest by circulation newspaper is USA Today which [reaches] only 1 percent of the population. In Europe, you often find the largest newspaper being both national and covering up to 7-8 percent of the population and in terms of readership reaching more than 20 percent of the adult population.

We can do the same in America. Imagine a newspaper — or rather, a network of newspapers — all targeting that very hard to reach audience of urban, affluent, active 20-40 year old readers in millions. If we joined forces, we could reach as many as 30 million readers per day and hence really competing with TV, national magazines etc.

Are you listening RedEye? tbt*? Examiner? Dallas Quick?

And I would be very happy to create the network together with the local players, which in return means that they could maintain their local strength but adding new revenue.

Are you listening Palo Alto, Conway, Vail, Denver, San Mateo, Santa Monica, etc.?

In fact, if some company decided to invest say $2-$400 million USD I strongly believe that they could create that national network of newspapers that would be extremely competitive in the national market. A 300.000 circ free newspaper with some 50-70 staffers can be run for less than 20 million USD per year. If created in a network, costs would be significantly less for the following editions.

Could it happen? I strongly believe so. If the local publishers aren't willing to do it, I'm sure somebody else will do it on their own and hence represent maybe the biggest threat to independent, local publishers.

It is almost as if he is laying down the gauntlet! It's time everybody who is in the free daily business, or wants to be, discuss this.

A few thoughts of my own:

1. Metro is now in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Tribune has free dailies in Chicago and Baltimore. The Examiner is in San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington. Belo has one in Dallas. Denver has a strong independent. Freedom newspapers has one in suburban Phoenix. Poynter has one in St. Pete, Fla. And there's a gaggle of free dailies in the San Francisco Bay Area and another gaggle in the Colorado Rockies (Vail, Aspen, etc.). There's a free daily network right now if everybody wants to cooperate.

2. Don't be fooled by the doom and gloom reporting about our economy. Smart investors buy low and sell high. Now's the time for free dailies to invest and prepare for a boom ahead.

3. Paid dailies will soon die, but that doesn't mean print journalism is dead. The demand for free dailies is strong. People prefer the format of a printed paper to one that they have to read online. Printed newspapers will be here for many years to come, but large metro dailies which rely on elderly subscribers are doomed.

4. Free dailies have dominated Canada because the major newspaper chains operate both free and paid papers in each market. As readership in paid papers declines, free daily readership increases. Advertisers end up staying with newspapers, which have kept pace with the times.

Let's have a robust discussion about this. Let's get a national network going. Let's push a few paid daily companies into going national with free dailies. Now is the time.

Readers love free daily newspapers

Residents of Palo Alto, California, can't get enough of the free daily newspapers available in their town. The first free daily was the Daily News, which started in 1995 after the collapse of the town's paid circulation daily. The founders of the Daily News, after selling to Knight Ridder four years ago, returned in late May to start the Daily Post. So Palo Alto — the home of Stanford University and many high-tech firms like Hewlett Packard — is seeing a rebound in printed newspapers. It's what the techies might call "Old Media." And, as the Post reports in its July 22 issue, demand for the printed word is soaring:



The part at the end about contacting local businesses seems a bit tacky -- too much like a PBS station beg-a-thon -- but the implication is clear enough: Local advertising makes or breaks these community-oriented free dailies.

Metro CEO proposes network of free dailies

The head of Metro International, the worldwide free daily chain, tells Reuters that free dailies in the U.S. should consider forming a network for the purpose of attracting ad dollars. Mikael Jensen offered the idea as he announced disappointing quarterly results. Jensen said his chain is looking to grow in Latin America, Asia and Russia, while Western Europe and the United States are ripe for consolidation.

We've got an e-mail into Jensen for comments about his national network. Here's a previous posting on U.S. markets served and unserved by free dailies. Metro is now in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Tribune has free dailies in Chicago and Baltimore. Belo has one in Dallas. There's a solid independent in Denver. Freedom newspapers has one in suburban Phoenix. Poynter has one in St. Pete, Fla. And there's a gaggle of free dailies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sure, none exist in places like Atlanta, Miami, Houston and L.A., but if the network succeeds, those markets could have papers overnight.

Aspen Daily News marks 30 years

The Aspen (Colorado) Daily News is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a number of stories in its July 20 edition about its history. (See "Editor's Note," "The road to relevancy," Muckraking publisher looks back, "Who needs advertising?" and a time capsule from 1978.)

While it wasn't the first free daily, in this era where media outlets are repeatedly bought and sold, the Aspen Daily News has had the same owner since the beginning, Dave Danforth.

The paper has an independent streak, it tackles controversial subjects and takes pride in the fact that its news coverage has cost it advertisers. The paper's slogan is "If you don't want it printed, don't let it happen."

The Aspen Daily News began as a single-sheet newspaper on July 1, 1978. In a few years, the paper bought a press and switched to newsprint. In 1988, Aspen got its second daily. The Aspen Times, then a weekly, decided to publish a daily to compete for ad dollars that were moving from the weekly to the Aspen Daily News.

It's hard to imagine a town of 12,000 residents supporting two newspapers, but 20 years later, both are still operating. Aspen is, of course, known for its skiing, but the summer season is strong there too. The weakest times of the year for business are the spring and fall, yet both papers year around without interruption. The Aspen Times is six days a week and the Daily News prints seven days. Shown here is the Aspen Daily News press room. The photo is from the paper's website.

In the free daily industry, most of the attention is paid to commuter dailies like Metro, amNewYork, 24 Hours, RedEye, the Examiner chain, and so on. But a format that receives less attention is the community daily, which seems to have a higher number of profitable papers which have been in existence longer than the commuter dailies. Both Aspen papers are examples of quality commuter dailies. And Aspen's competitive zeal has spread to Vail, where that town just got its second free daily earlier this month.

Examiner kills suburban editions in Bay Area

The Examiner chain has been getting a lot of positive press about its plans to introduce a Sunday newspaper in San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The new edition starts this Sunday, July 13. The move makes sense if you're delivering to homes because people are usually home on Sundays. Why clutter their driveways or doorsteps with unwanted papers on the other days of the week?

But even with the addition of a Sunday edition, the Examiner is cutting costs. First, it is eliminating Saturday editions in those three markets. In other words, the Saturday product is being repackaged and delivered a day later.

And in the Bay Area, the Examiner is dropping its suburban editions serving communities south of San Francisco in San Mateo County. The Examiner plans to close its bureau there and move those staffers to a San Francisco office. Starting Monday, San Mateo County residents will receive the same Examiner as readers in San Francisco.

The Examiner, in all three markets, will have a large, home-delivered circulation on Thursdays and Sundays. The other days of the week, readers will need to visit the Examiner websites or pick up a paper from a news rack. They won't be delivered to homes as in the past.

California paper cuts 1/4th of newsroom

The Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily News laid off six of its staffers yesterday including five from the newsroom, according to the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club. Given that the free daily only had a newsroom of 20, the cut represents a quarter of the paper's news department.

In addition, the seven-day paper will be reduced to six; its Monday edition will be eliminated. The paper's satellite edition in San Mateo, which lost its Monday edition two years ago, will stop printing on Tuesdays as well.

The Monday edition most recently was 28 pages, according to the Press Club's account. Three years ago, it ranged from 52 to 64 pages.

For several years, the Palo Alto Daily News was seen as one of the most successful free daily newspapers. It was based in Palo Alto, the wealthy home of Stanford University some 35 miles south of San Francisco and 11 miles north of San Jose. Starting in 1995 with an initial eight-page edition, the paper was profitable in nine months and eventually grew to dominate its market area despite competition from traditional dailies and healthy community weeklies. The Daily News branched out and started sister papers in the neighboring towns of San Mateo, Burlingame, Redwood City and Los Gatos. The five papers comprised a company that was known as the Daily News Group.

Owners Dave Price and Jim Pavelich sold the Daily News Group in 2005 to Knight Ridder for $25 million, which is probably a record for a free daily newspaper. The acquisition provided some breathing room for Knight Ridder's San Jose Mercury News, which had been struggling to sell ads in the Palo Alto area due to the Daily News.

MediaNews Group, headed by cost-cutting CEO Dean Singleton of Denver, acquired the Daily News Group when his company bought the San Jose Mercury and a handful of other Knight Ridder papers in 2006 for $1 billion.

Since the original sale, the Daily News has gone through a series of editors and its been redesigned. The paper's emphasis on local news changed. A recent edition contained only three locally bylined stories but more than two dozen wire service articles. And the Palo Alto Daily News literally moved out of Palo Alto to an office park in Menlo Park.

The changes apparently prompted previous owners Price and Pavelich — once their noncompete agreements had expired — to return to the market with a new paper, the Daily Post, which premiered May 27. They opened their offices in the building the Daily News abandoned when it left town. Their bet is that the readers and advertisers still want a local free daily.

The Daily News hasn't said what prompted yesterday's cuts, whether it was problems in Palo Alto or at its parent company. It should be pointed out that other MediaNews papers in San Jose and Walnut Creek, Calif., were laying off employees last week as well. Credit rating agencies say the company is at risk of defaulting on its loans.

Paper that 'lost touch' gets a competitor

The founder of the Vail Daily, who sold that free daily to Swift Newspapers in 1993, on Friday launched another daily in that Colorado resort town.

The first edition of Jim Pavelich's new Vail Mountaineer was eight pages. It contained about 50 percent advertising from local businesses.

Pavelich said he started the Mountaineer because he is frustrated with the direction the Vail Daily has gone in recent years.

“It was the biggest tourist holiday of the year, and the big headline on the front page, and I’m paraphrasing, said something like, ‘I hate living here.’ And although I don’t remember the details, I remember that the headline was so unbelievably negative about nothing,” Pavelich told www.realvail.com. “I understand this is a real town with real issues, but they’ve lost touch.”

The Mountaineer was the second free daily Pavelich started in the past month. On May 27, Pavelich and Dave Price started the Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily Post. The Post is going up against a newspaper the pair sold in 2005, the Palo Alto Daily News, one of the most successful community free dailies. The now defunct Knight Ridder bought the Palo Alto Daily News for $25 million in 2005; in 2006 it was acquired by MediaNews Group.

Non-competition agreements from both sales have expired, allowing the former owners back into these markets.

In both cases, the new papers are entering markets where readers are already hooked on getting their news from free daily newspapers.

Vail isn't the only Colorado market where two free dailies are competing. Swift's Aspen Times has been going head-to-head with the independent Aspen Daily News for 20 years.

Despite the economic downturn and pessimism about newspapers, the Mountaineer is the fifth free daily to open in 2008. The others are in Baltimore; Halifax, N.S.; Salt Lake City and Palo Alto. Since the beginning of the year, BostonNOW has closed, the Manchester (N.H.) Express switched to a weekly, and the Nashville City Paper transitioned to an online product with a semi-weekly print editions.

This Examiner doesn't belong to Anschutz

COMMENTARYWith a net worth last year at $7.4 billion (according to Forbes) and with gas prices soaring above $4 a gallon, it's our guess that oilman Phil Anschutz hasn't pushed a cart through a supermarket recently. If he had, the owner of the Examiner chain of newspapers would have encountered an Examiner he doesn't own. On the left is a front page from one of his Examiner newspapers and on the right is the "National Examiner," owned by American Media Corporation of Boca Raton, Fla., which also owns The National Enquirer, Star, Globe and Sun titles. Any attempt by Anschutz to go national with the Examiner probably won't be received well by American Media, which owns the National Examiner brand name. You've got to wonder if Anschutz's newspaper people, such as Ryan McKibben, knew this before announcing plans for a national rollout of the Examiner brand in 2004. That rollout, planned for 70 markets, stopped after three cities. Now it appears that the Anschutz Examiners are copying the National Examiner by putting crime and celebrity stories on the front cover.

Note: The Examiner chain has launched its attack on Democrats who oppose drilling for more oil. This editorial, however, omits any disclosure that the newspaper is owned by an oil industry tycoon.

Random notes & observations

AWARDS: The rap against free dailies is that their journalism is inferior. Well, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the big winner in the Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards was the paid San Jose Mercury News, with 31 plaques. But in second was the free San Mateo Daily Journal with 23 awards. The Palo Alto Daily News group wasn't far behind with 17 ...

QUICK DOESN'T MEAN QUICK READ: The Dallas Morning News has announced it plans to print a free 16-page broadsheet newspaper called Briefing, which will be thrown on the driveways of non-subscribers in high-income areas. Management is going out of its way to emphasize that the 200,000 circulation Briefing won't be anything like Quick, its 100,000 circulation free daily. “Quick is single-copy,” DMN president and gm John McKeon told E&P, whereas Briefing "is home-delivered. Quick is a tabloid, and Briefing is a broadsheet. Quick is a younger product, and the sweet spot for Briefing is 25-49. It does fill out a portfolio of products to serve different readers.” ...

ENTERTAINMENT? The Washington Examiner is planning to launch an entertainment oriented website. Given the conservative Christian views of owner Phil Anschutz, it will be interesting to see what the site defines as entertainment. Anschutz has produced movies such as the "The Chronicles of Narnia" series, which reinforce his beliefs. A lot of Hollywood keeps its distance from Anschutz since he has bankrolled anti-gay rights ballot measures.

SPEAKING OF ANSCHUTZ, various newspapers including the Wall Street Journal say that the Denver billionaire will be going on trial June 23 for failing to pay $140 million in taxes. The San Francisco Peninsula Press Club website says that his Examiner and City Star newspapers haven't mentioned a word about the case.

Why would this free daily succeed?

COMMENTARY
The San Francisco Bay Area has become the most saturated place in the country for free dailies. But that hasn't stopped another one from starting. Today, the Palo Alto Daily Post began publishing, becoming that city's second free daily. It's the third paper in that town of 60,000 people if you include a weekly paper. And it doesn't have a website or an online, multi-platform strategy. Yikes!

At this point, you'd think the Palo Alto Daily Post would have two strikes against it -- a lot of competition and no desire to go online.

On the other hand, I can think of three reasons why the smart money would bet on the success of this paper:

1. The Post's publishers are entering a market already accustomed to the free daily concept.

2. This paper has figured out that the Internet doesn't help them. Think of all the readership printed newspapers have lost because they put their stories online. People now know that if they want to read a scoop, they should go online. But online advertising isn't working out for newspapers. Nobody is able to fund the costs of newsgathering with an online edition. Maybe the Post guys have figured that out.

3. And the Post guys are none other than Dave Price and Jim Pavelich, who have started several profitable free daily newspapers over the years in Colorado and California. They know what they're doing.

Oh, and one more thing. They know Palo Alto. They started the Palo Alto Daily News in 1995, which became arguably the most successful community free daily in the nation ("community" as distinguished from "commuter"). Under their aegis, the paper added editions in a number of surrounding cities. And they sold the paper in 2005 for $25 million, according to the following article in the New York Sun headlined "Heresy in Silicon Valley: Traditional Newspaper Launches." Here are a few excerpts:

In another act of brazen heresy against the prevailing dot-com culture here, the Palo Alto Daily Post, which published its first issue yesterday, has no Web site. At a time when most newspaper owners are looking to the Internet to revive their struggling industry, the new paper's owners, James Pavelich and David Price, brusquely dismiss the need for an online presence.

"We're a newspaper," Mr. Pavelich said in an interview yesterday as he returned from shuttling his inaugural edition to newsboxes around town. "The Internet is a form of broadcast to me. We're not broadcasters. We just don't have the time to run two businesses."

... Earlier this year, the Daily News moved its offices out of Palo Alto, to neighboring Menlo Park. Messrs. Pavelich and Price swooped in, tweaking the competition by renting space in the same building it just vacated. "It was kind of comical to us and we jumped at it," Mr. Pavelich said.

Executives at the Daily News did not return calls seeking comment.

... The Daily Post's inaugural issue featured articles about city volunteers quitting over mandatory fingerprinting and a physician facing charges for prescribing medicine over the Internet to a Stanford student who committed suicide. At 28 pages, the paper is just a tad thinner than the gaunt metropolitan dailies from San Francisco and San Jose.

Alan Mutter took a decidedly negative tone about what he described as a newspaper war brewing in Silicon Valley:

While Palo Alto is an economically and demographically succulent market where real estate prices continue to climb even to this day, the upscale community hardly seems like a place where multiple, profitable free newspapers would be likely to thrive.

Mutter goes on to say that, in his opinion, Palo Alto isn't a good place for free newspapers and that the subway terminals that Metro attempts to dominate are far better vehicles.

OK, in a year or two we will see who is right. In his interview with the New York Sun, Dave Price points out that when he started the Palo Alto Daily News in 1995 "we had a number of people who were supposedly experts in the newspaper industry saying we wouldn't last six months ... We proved them wrong. Not only was the paper a success in a business sense, it won a tremendous number of awards."

Cablevision empire adds amNewYork

The profitable, 300,000-plus free daily amNew York will be sold, along with its parent Newsday, to Cablevision for $650 million in a bid that has critics howling. They say Cablevision overpaid and they question whether profits from Newsday will even cover the debt service for $650 million. Newsday had profits of $90 million last year, which means Cablevision is willing to pay 6.5 to 7 times cash flow.

What this means to amNewYork is anybody's guess. There has been little media coverage about that part of the deal. It's hard to imagine amNewYork being sold off since it depends greatly on Newsday for content and ads. But if Cablevision overpaid, cutbacks will certainly follow at the newspapers which could hobble amNewYork at a stage when it is becoming a force in New York media.

Examiner cuts back on home delivery days

The Examiner announced Thursday that it only deliver papers to homes two days a week in its three markets, San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

The Examiner is also moving its "weekend edition" from Saturday to Sunday starting July 13.

As a result, the Examiner will no longer be distributed to homes or businesses on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays or Saturdays. On those days, the paper will only be available in news racks and stores.

The move will likely reduce complaints about unwanted Examiners being thrown on driveways and doorsteps.

Like other newspapers that have reduced the number of days they publish, the Examiner is emphasizing that its web site will be beefed up.

It wasn't immediately known why billionaire oilman Phil Anschutz would trim the sales of his newspapers. With oil at $122 a barrel, gas at $4 a gallon and movie tickets at $9.50 (he's the nation's largest owner of cinemas), it's hard to imagine him noticing that his newspapers were losing money.

But there is a famous story about Anschutz's aversion to losing money. He set up his son-in-law, Tim Brown, with an AM radio station in Denver in 2002. The 10,000-watt station lost money, which reportedly angered Anschutz. One day in 2004, Anschutz walked into the station and ordered that the power be cut immediately. He shut down the station on the spot. As employees walked out of the darkened building, they were handed their final checks. His son-in-law was quoted in the Denver Post as saying it was the hardest day of his life.

RedEye weekend edition hits 100,000 mark

RedEye, the Chicago Tribune's free daily, is reporting that its year-old weekend edition now has 100,000 opt-in subscribers.

The news comes as the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that the Tribune's daily circulation had fallen 4.4 percent in the past six months to 541,663 and its Sunday edition had dropped 4.6 percent to 898,703. The growth in RedEye's readership has more than exceeded the Tribune's losses during the period.

The Monday-Friday RedEye edition has a circulation of about 200,000. But with an estimated pass-along rate of 1:4, RedEye says its readership is about 800,000. In fact, a Gallup survey commissioned by RedEye says its readership grew 17 percent over the previous year.

The weekend edition is distributed free to readers who sign up, or "opt-in," for delivery. Unlike the Examiner chain, which indiscriminately throws its papers on doorsteps and driveways in San Francisco, Washington and Baltimore, the weekend RedEye only goes to where it is wanted. Not surprisingly, advertisers like this approach.

"RedEye Weekend has been embraced by readers and provides Best Buy with a unique way to reach engaged consumers with an advertising message aimed at showing customers 'why Best Buy this week,'" Marsha Lawrence, senior strategist at Best Buy, said in a press release from RedEye announcing the 100,000 milestone.

The release quotes RedEye GM Brad Moore as saying, "We've developed a loyal following with our readers and getting 100,000
of them to sign up for a home-delivered weekend edition further validates it. ... We're excited about the opportunity this provides for advertisers looking to target them at the Zip code level."

RedEye says that several features developed for its weekend edition have developed a strong following in the past year including the Weekend Playlist, Deja View, Pop Picks and a fashion column by Clinton Kelly (from TLC's "What Not to Wear").

"RedEye is for Chicagoans who value their time as much as the news and information that helps them lead socially active lives, so we couldn't just leave them hanging without their fix on the weekend," said Tran Ha, editor of RedEye's weekend edition.

Cards urge fines for unwanted papers

The Examiner is stirring up trouble again with its practice of throwing newspapers on the doorsteps or driveways where it is not wanted.

This time, an unknown person in San Francisco is attaching cards to Examiners that say "The SF Examiner is TRASHING OUR CITY." A resident who agrees can sign the card and mail it to City Hall, according to the website SFist.

The cards began appearing soon after San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, one of 11 members of the city's legislative branch, proposed fines for newspapers that deliver to homes where residents have requested that the paper stop delivery. His legislation is expected to come before the Board of Supervisors in June.

Examiner Publisher John Wilcox claims that his paper will stop delivery if requested, but the "comments" section of the SFist posting suggests otherwise. A sample:

"These things are flung helter skelter all over the sidewalks, no delivery person is paying attention to addresses."

"As you call and send those forms, also remember that the Examiner is owned by a rich, right-wing nut."

"email them. that worked for us and our whole block now hasn't received it for over a year. make sure to include in the email your not interested to read such incompetent journal first thing in the morning IN A PLASTIC BAG."

"I have emailed and called them. Neither works."

"I like them on the sidewalk. They give me a near lifetime supply of dog s--- bags."

This isn't the first time the Examiner's delivery method has caused trouble. Residents in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. are upset and those around Baltimore convinced a state legislator to introduce a bill that would fine publishers who deliver unwanted papers. The legislator withdrew her bill when the Examiner and other papers promised to clean up their act.

Q&A about the launch of the Baltimore 'b'

You've got to admit that Baltimore's new free daily has a clever, memorable name — b. Just one lowercase letter. And that's not the only new idea behind this newspaper and Web site that launched April 14. Free-daily.com asked b General Manager Brad Howard these questions.

Free-Daily.com: First some stats. What's your current circulation?

Howard: We are distributing 50,000 copies of b using more than a thousand bright orange newspaper boxes located where Baltimore's young adults live, work and play — downtown Baltimore, Federal Hill, Canton, Towson, Cockeysville, Annapolis. You can also find b at Royal Farms, CVS, Mr. Tire, Merritt Athletic Clubs, Brick Bodies, college campuses or your favorite watering hole. We also distribute the paper using a network of samplers who pass out the paper to eager readers in high traffic areas — train stations, busy intersections, light rail, park & rides, the metro. Overall, we plan on distributing 100,000 copies by the end of the year.

Free-Daily.com: How many pick-up points?

Howard: 2,400

Free-Daily.com: How many racks?

Howard: 1,000

Free-Daily.com: Current average page count?

Howard: 36

Free-Daily.com: Cost for a full-page ad?

Howard: Local open rate is $2,200

Free-Daily.com: How large is your staff?

Howard: 22

Free-Daily.com: How many of them are in news, sales, circulation, etc.?

Howard: We have a dedicated news and managerial staff that operates in office space separate from The Sun. All sales people throughout the Baltimore Sun Media Group's different properties can sell into b.

Free-Daily.com: How did your first day go? What did you do well and what could have been done better?

Howard: Fabulously. The paper and bthesite.com were warmly received. In fact, things really went according to plan.

Free-Daily.com: It's been said that this is a tough time for advertising. Isn't it risky to start a new publication during an economic slow down?

Howard: The Baltimore market has a high concentration of people employed in government positions, the defense industry and health care, which are all recession-resistant sectors. As a result, the Baltimore market's economy stays pretty stable in good times and bad.

Free-Daily.com: What's different between the b and RedEye (a free daily in Chicago also owned by the Tribune Co.)?

Howard: We're truly a unique, authentic and daily voice for young adults in the Baltimore area. About a third of our content will come from our readers. We learned a lot from RedEye, tbt and Quick, but b is all about Baltimore.

Free-Daily.com: Why did you pick a single letter for your title? What's your thinking about that?

Howard: Why not? We tried a lot of different titles, but b, in addition to its obvious tie to Baltimore, really connected with our audience during focus groups. It is simple, even elegant. It stands for whatever our audience wants it to "b."

Free-Daily.com: Does Tribune have plans to replicate this format in other markets?

Howard: At this point I have not heard of any specific plans for replication in other markets; however, Tribune is always looking for ways to satisfy market demands with quality products.

Free-Daily.com: Metro International CEO Per Mikael Jensen is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying his company erred by not rolling out enough editions in the United States. Metro's in three markets and he thinks they should have been in 10 in order to attract national advertisers. Unless Tribune rolls out more b's or RedEyes, isn't your company in danger of the same thing?

Howard: We are following a model that has proven successful in several other markets, including Chicago, Dallas and Tampa Bay. These other papers were extremely generous by sharing their lessons learned when they launched a young-adult paper years ago. All three of these papers are successful, and we expect b to succeed, too, because we are filling a need that is not being met here in Baltimore — a free, daily newspaper produced by and for Baltimore's young adults. And unlike Metro, we have a national sales staff that can package b with The Sun, our community newspapers and our interactive products.

Free-Daily.com: Why is Baltimore a good market for a youth oriented free daily?

Howard: Baltimore is the 19th largest market in the United States and has almost 600,000 young adults. That's a market segment with some heft.

Free-Daily.com: Is the Examiner a competitor? Do you compete more with alt-weeklies, which are typically youth oriented?

Howard: b and bthesite.com are filling a vacuum in the Baltimore market. A free, daily newspaper developed by and for Baltimoreans in their 20s and 30s didn't exist before b. It does now.

Metro CEO still bullish on U.S. market

We caught up with Metro International chief executive Per Mikael Jensen to ask him if he was quoted correctly in the Wall Street Journal where he lamented that his company hadn't started more editions in U.S. markets years ago. Now Metro has its three U.S. papers (New York, Philadelphia and Boston) up for sale.

"I was quoted correctly, but being a journalist myself I know that all you say won't get quoted. So it was a few words out of many that made it to WSJ," said Jensen, who took the top job at the international free daily chain in November. "The context is correct, though. I do believe that Metro should have launched in eight to 12 cities in U.S. much earlier to gain size and national presence. But nobody said it's too late!

"Creating a national network of free papers would also be interesting, attracting those many national advertisers that need
free papers to get in contact with the young, affluent audience that we reach so well north of the border — and in the three cities where we publish," Jensen told Free-Daily.com. "... No single [free-daily] company can claim to be national in the U.S. And that is a huge opportunity for free newspapers and for Metro."

Jensen declined to comment rumors that Metro was leaving the U.S., however. "All I can say is that we are constantly looking for the best options to run our papers. That includes partnerships, JVs (joint ventures) and so on."

Examiner photographer assaulted at school

A photographer for the Baltimore Examiner was assaulted while taking photos outside a school for a story about school violence, according to the Baltimore Sun and Examiner. Arianne Starnes, 24, said she was thrown to the ground Thursday after a student at Reginald F. Lewis High School left a group of about 20 others. The student grabbed Starnes' cameras, pulling at the straps and threatening her. After a struggle, Starnes was pushed backward to the ground, falling on her cameras. Starnes stood up and was again confronted by the student, who this time pointed his finger at her head and pretended to shoot her, saying "I told you not to take a ... picture." School police took Starnes' statement at The Examiner's office, and an investigation is under way.

No justification for doom and gloom

EDITORIAL
Here we go again. The online publication MediaLife is bashing the free daily industry again with another story that is rife with errors. The story's premise is that the economic downturn is worse for free dailies than for other media. As evidence, reporter Heidi Dawley cites last week's closure of BostonNOW, a quarterly loss reported by Metro International and losses Rupert Murdoch has taken in the early stage of his new free daily in London.

Let's take these points one by one.

1. The Icelandic telecommunications company Dagsbrun pulled the plug on BostonNOW because of problems it was having with its businesses in Europe that have nothing to do with free daily newspapers, according to BostonNOW CEO Russel Pergament. "Their focus now appears to be primarily upon their core retail holdings. North American media is not even a distant second," Pergament said. Publisher Mike Schroeder added, “This newspaper, not even a year old, is right on track for profits in Year Three, just as the business plan called for.”

2. Metro reported a $8.9 million (U.S.) loss in the first quarter, but that was 36 percent better than in the same quarter a year ago. Moreover, Metro appears to have done an about-face when it comes to confronting its business problems by closing money-losing papers and investing in growth markets. Metro's three U.S. papers were underperformers long before the current economic downturn. Now Metro is looking at its options for those papers which could include partnerships and joint ventures.

3. Murdoch lost about $34 million (U.S.) in the first 10 months of operating his new free daily, the London Paper. With a daily circulation of 500,000, it's easy to see how the losses could pile up. But, again, those losses began before this downturn in the economy, and they would have happened whether there was an economic slowdown or not. For him, it's an investment in a new business and a way to grab market share from competitors.

Then reporter Dawley makes the unattributed claim that "the vast majority" of free dailies are losing money. Really? How would she know? By my count, 64 free dailies operate in the U.S. and Canada, and 21 of them are privately held. Their owners aren't going to disclose their financials publicly. But when a paper has been around for 10 or 20 years, you've got to assume it's doing something right.

The public companies that own the 23 other free dailies are so large that they don't have to break out information about individual papers. So we only know bits and pieces. Tribune Co., for instance, voluntarily disclosed that its Chicago RedEye and amNewYork are profitable, but it was under no legal obligation to do so. As for Metro, numerous news reports have focused on the fact that its three U.S. free dailies are losing money, but one has to dig deep into the company's financial statements to see that its group of seven free dailies in Canada (jointly owned with TorStar Corp.) are in the black, and growing like gangbusters (See page 10).

It's also curious that a story about the economics of newspapers wouldn't mention the rising cost of newsprint.

Nobody is disputing that all newspapers face economic pressures these days. But traditional paid newspapers, saddled with high-cost personnel and expensive infrastructure (giant presses, old buildings), are in more jeopardy than more nimble free dailies (which typically have smaller staffs, outsource their printing and lease space).

And momentum matters too. For years, paid papers have been the subject of negative publicity about the loss of readers, and the frequency of such stories seems to have increased in the past couple of years. On the other hand, free papers are on a roll. Consider the following:

• Tribune Co., which has two hot, profitable free dailies (amNewYork and Chicago's RedEye) has launched a third in Baltimore.

• MediaNews Group, one of the country's biggest paid newspaper chains, has started a free daily in Salt Lake City.

• Freedom Newspapers has switched its 102,000-circulation East Valley Tribune (based in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa) from paid to free, and is building a state-of-the-art printing plant for it — a major vote of confidence in the free daily concept.

• And Vail, Colo., will soon get its second free daily.

MediaLife apparently has an agenda against free dailies (see posts on 07-27-2007, 09-28-2007), but there is ample evidence that these papers will do well during difficult times. In fact, they might do much better than traditional paid newspapers.

Colorado Daily moving into rival's building

One of the first free daily newspapers, the Colorado Daily, has moved into the building that houses its former competitor, the paid Boulder Daily Camera.

The Camera and Colorado Daily will maintain separate newsrooms and separate news and advertising staffs even though the two papers have the same owner, said Lou Patterson, the Colorado Daily's operations manager.

"(We're) next-door neighbors rather than roommates," Patterson said, according to a story in the Camera.

The Camera's red brick building faces Pearl and 11th streets in downtown Boulder. The Daily's 20 employees will move into the back of that building, which faces Walnut Street.

"It makes perfect sense ... It is a better location, it's much cheaper and allows us to realize some operation synergies that were not possible in their current location," said Al Manzi, president of Prairie Mountain Publishing, owner of the two papers.

The Colorado Daily originally was the student-run paper at the University of Colorado, but it split away from the university in 1971 in a dispute with the school's regents over its Vietnam War coverage. The student editors set up shop in an office above a beer joint a block from campus and published the paper on their own without university support.

To pay the bills, the Daily expanded its advertising base by distributing citywide. It began sending reporters to city council, county commission and school board meetings. And with that, a 34-year battle with the Camera began.

In the 1990s, the Daily suffered a number of problems including an embezzlement scandal.

In September 2005, the Camera's owner, E.W. Scripps Co., bought the Daily. Then Scripps transferred ownership of both papers to Prairie Mountain Publishing, a joint venture it has with Denver-based MediaNews Group, publisher of The Denver Post.

HISTORICAL NOTE: The Colorado Daily is the nation's oldest operating free daily newspaper. There were at least two free dailies before it: the San Fernando Valley's Los Angeles Daily News and the Contra Costa Times, based in Walnut Creek, Calif., east of San Francisco. However, the Contra Costa paper switched to paid in the 1960s and Daily News began charging in 1982.