Thelondonpaper sets its sights on Standard's ads

by Kate Gibbs, Media Week 18-Sep-07

News International's thelondonpaper has declared war on the Evening Standard after losing out to rival freesheet London Lite in the first National Readership Survey to analyse the free papers.

The NRS estimated that London Lite had an average readership of 745,000
in the six months to June - ahead of thelondonpaper on 713,000.

The advantage came despite ABC figures for August showing that London

Lite publishes fewer copies than thelondonpaper - 398,220 as opposed to

486,165.

This prompted thelondonpaper's advertising director, Michael Craig, to
say that the paper had "no interest" in competing with London Lite, and
would now use its young, affluent readership and its bigger circulation
to lure advertisers from the Lite's paid-for Associated Newspaper's
stablemate, the Evening Standard.

According to thelondonpaper, the NRS revealed that 44% of its readers
were under 35 and in the ABC1 category, compared to 42% of Lite's
readers and 25% of the Standard's.

The Evening Standard was also only just ahead in the overall ABC1
category - 75% compared to 74% for thelondonpaper.

However, London Lite questioned the claim on the grounds that the NRS
has yet to publish this part of its results.

The Evening Standard is 13% down year on year in the six months to June,
the NRS found, with 103,000 fewer readers.

But a spokesman for the newspaper said figures had increased by 4.4%
compared with figures for October to March, which proved that the
audience was stabilising.

She added that thelondonpaper was "kidding itself" if it thought its
rival was not London Lite.

Thelondonpaper's Craig also criticised the NRS report, highlighting that
the figures were based on verbal responses and that the actual
readership for both papers could be plus or minus 112,000.

NRS managing director Roger Pratt said the figures were based on
adequate sample sizes and that every paper had to take into account a
margin for error.

According to the NRS, The Sun is still the country's best-read paper,
with an estimated daily readership of 7.9 million, placing it well ahead
of the Daily Mail (5.1 million) and the Daily Mirror (3.8 million).

The Daily Star increased its readership by 19% to 1.8 million over the
period, and morning freesheet Metro also gained nearly half a million
readers, which represents a 31% boost.

The Daily Telegraph posted an increase of 37,000 readers for the period
(2%), thanks to a growing male readership.

The NRS survey, released last Thursday, was conducted between January
and June 2007 and involved 36,000 UK adults.