Metro struggles with its online content

Is it not rather ironic that Metro International announces that it will not breakeven in 2008 and its third quarter results show losses 69% bigger.

And it's all down to its online operations.

Paid content reports that

So strong in print, Metro International seems unable to find a coherent online money-making proposition and so far this year has lost a total €3.97 million (£3.08 million) from its seven websites in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary, Chile, France and Spain. We now can’t rule out site closures: Metro says it’s “actively engaged in a strategic review of its websites to ensure that the product continues to deliver growth

It's web traffic has seen rises but it is unbale to,in its own words

to exploit the sales opportunities for online at a lower cost”.

As Roy Greenslade points out though,

Karen Wall, assistant managing director of Metro in the UK, focussed on good old print, arguing that the free newspaper model was growing

A shocking bit of photoshopping

Make of this what you think




Ht-Chris Paul

Does the free newspaper model stand up today.

Do read Philip Stone's article in Follow the media this morning.

Philip examines the business model of the free newspaper Metro and questions whether the revenue streams stack up in the current economic climate?

As economies around the world suffer from high oil prices, the credit squeeze, and in the case of newspapers higher newsprint costs, the logical question is whether free newspapers can really make money in an environment where the advertising ranks are thinning out and ad rates, already pretty much rock-bottom, have to sink lower to attract the free paper advertiser? Can consolidation that creates bigger advertising package incentive deals with paid-for newspapers save the day?

Reflecting that it is 13 years since the Metro first launched in Stockholm,Stone says today that

According to Dr. Piet Bakker, perhaps the foremost expert on global free newspapers, most publishers probably planned at launch that their free newspapers would be profitable in three years, but they now seem resigned that it will take far longer, perhaps five years or more. Can they stand for that kind of long-term expense? He believes that some 75 free newspapers have already closed.

Now what did they teach us about writing headlines?

Martin Belam makes a valid point while looking at this morning's Metro front page.


And what was it we were taught about headline writing?

The rise of the free paper

Bad news for those who despair of newspapers littering our streets and transport system but the newspaper innovation blog looks at the rise of the freebie across the world.


There are now free papers in 50 countries,they are read by 72m people daily and on any one day there are 38 million copies published.

The metro paper was first introduced in the public transport system in Sweden in 1995,it came to the UK in 2000 and is now printed in most European countries