London Lite and thelondonpaper hit Standard circulation

by Mark Banham, Brand Republic 13-Oct-06, 12:30

LONDON - London Lite has won the distribution battle against thelondonpaper, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for September, with the freebies hitting the Evening Standard paid-for paper hard and pushing its sales below 300,000.

In the afternoon free papers' ABC debut, Associated's London Lite achieved a distribution figure of 359,389 against a slightly lower figure of 327,120 for News International's thelondonpaper.

London's original morning free paper Metro rose 1.37% from August to September to record a circulation figure of 549,713, up from 542,294 distributed copies.

The battle for the eyeballs of London's commuters seems to have hit hard the capital's only paid-for tabloid, the Evening Standard, which recorded a drop of 7.6% or 23,926 copies to 289,254 from August's figures of 313,181. The hefty fall pushes the paper, which recently shifted its focus to stand as a quality title, below the psychologically important 300,000 mark.

Veronica Wadley, editor of the Evening Standard, said: "We are holding our core audience and we are reaching that vital affluent AB market that others find so difficult to reach. If you really want to know what's happening in the capital, you must get the Standard."

Elsewhere, the capital's financial freesheet City AM, recorded its first distribution figure over the 90,000 mark, with 90,682 copies distributed to the capital's financial employees.

Jens Torpe, chief executive of City AM, said: "Officially reaching 90,000 is an excellent result for us just a year after launch. This figure again proves the success of our free newspaper model. Hand-delivery and corporate distribution are highly effective ways to target both regular and new readers and we look forward to continuing growth."

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