The demise of the free paper may be premature

Last week's announcement of the closure of the London Free sheet the Lite brought the gloom and doomongers to the fore over the future of the concept.

Maybe though the obituaries shouldn't be dusted down just yet.

What is happening in London, and in other countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, is that more than two free dailies - in this case, two evening papers, one morning paper and one financial paper - competing in a crowded market (almost a dozen paid papers, including the part-free Evening Standard) in a recession will not lead to profits for all titles. Especially free evening papers, a model proved to be very difficult in other parts of world, will suffer. In all markets mentioned above, free dailies have closed down already.

writes Dr. Piet Bakker over at Paid Content.

Quite simply he adds

there certainly is room for a free paper as the young urban non-paid audience is growing and still valuable for advertisers. Room for one at least and two perhaps, but not for three or four.