Monday Note

amNewYork and the local edition of Metro have found their niche in the Big Apple.
The first one is profitable, with a revenue estimated to $18m-$20m and undisclosed profit. amNY is helped by its shareholder, Tribune Inc., which allows the free paper to reprint stories from Newsday and to benefit from its printing plan. Amazingly enough, the revenue is half the one generated by each of the two big free papers in Paris, 20 Minutes and Metro. Metro NY is not yet profitable, and its revenue is even smaller than amNY’s, at $14m. Both survive in the context of a rather depressed New York daily press.
> story in Crain’s

Related columns:

1. Paid-for-free papers: the mirage of the hybrid models TweetIn less than five years, major newspapers will be giving away more than 50% of their copies. We call this the hybrid model. It works like this: a paid-for newspaper (one posting a price on its first page) with a vast portion it circulation distributed in selected – that’s the key point — areas for [...]...
2. The battle for New York’s papers TweetAn update: Murdoch decides not to bid for Newday. The AP story. Five newspapers in New York. Ranging from the most respectable to the lowest tabloid. One is the object of a bidding war, another is under siege by Wall Street. Who will control NYC’s newspapers a year from now? Here is an overview of [...]...
3. Indian Press: The Price Problem TweetHere is the Indian newspapers price problem: at the kiosk, you face a multitude of titles (roughly 4700 dailies across the country) including about 60 in English. Prices range from 1 to 3 rupees ($0.02 to $0.06). Even by Indian standards those are untenable rates: they cover only about 10% of variable costs. Finnish newsprint [...]...
4. The Uncertain Future of Free Dailies TweetThere are signs. Not necessarily good ones. At ten in the morning in Paris, you still find piles of free dailies at almost every distribution point. At four in the afternoon, in the business district, outside one of the busiest subway stations, unopened stacks of copies of Metro lay soaked by the winter rain. Two [...]...
5. The New York Times launches a text-messaging service TweetBy sending a text message to designated Times numbers, users can receive the opening text of articles on their cell phones and other mobile devices. > Story in Crain’s...