Free Newspapers

The Independent asked me to think about the impact of recession on free newspapers. You can read my thoughts here. The excellent website about the free newspaper industry, to which I refer in the piece, is available here. It is worth noting that, 24 hours before the piece was published but sadly after the copy deadline, Kent on Sunday appeared in shops with a cover price of 90p. It was previously free but has now adopted a mixed paid/free model whereby some copies will be delivered free to homes but copies in shops must be paid for. 

Consider:  in the classic, paid-for newspaper model readers avoided paying for all the journalism they consumed. Some of it was financed by advertising. Newspaper proprietors charged advertisers for the attention of their readers and charged readers for access to journalism. They enjoyed stereo income stream which allowed expensive advertising to subsidise expensive journalism. The free newspaper abandons this dual income stream in favour of dependence on advertising alone. So far it  has struggled to produce much good journalism, though it has produced some (e.g. City AM).   I wonder if it will outlive the paid-for newspaper or prove equally vulnerable to the winds of change.