Evening Standard goes free!
I thought there would be a few changes when the Evening Standard was sold to Alexander Lebedev. But with the (free) Paper pulling out of the competition, I thought the Standard would probably take advantage to close its ‘Lite’ free edition and make a bit more money out of circulation revenue. Well, I was wrong. The Standard – the whole, big, real newspaper – is now going to be completely free.
It’s a real gamble. Basically, the Standard suffered from the freesheet battle by losing much of its paid circulation. With only 300,000 people reading it, it’s become less attractive to advertisers – and advertisers pay most of the bills for any newspaper.
So by going free, Lebedev hopes the paper will become a hotter property with advertisers. The plan is apparently to double the readership – giving advertisers more than half a million eyeballs per ad.
The big gamble? Advertising revenues for most newspapers have fallen off a cliff in the last year. So the Standard isn’t going to have an easy time fighting for its share of advertising budgets.
But the best of luck to Lebedev and the Standard. It’s a brave move – and I shall enjoy picking up my free copy!
Photo from Annie Mole on
