Dublin free-for-all

It's amazing it took so long, but now a free-sheet for Dublin commuters is on the way. Metro will compete with daily papers and make a pretty profit for Associated Newspapers. Conor Brady reports

Dublin newspaper managers are shaking off the lethargy of the summer season and heading into what looks like a stormy autumn marketplace. The unknown quantity is the imminent launch by the Associated Newspapers group, which publishes The Daily Mail and Ireland On Sunday, of Ireland's first free daily newspaper.

There has been a general stability in the Dublin daily newspaper market since the demise of The Irish Press group a decade ago. The Irish Independent – combining broadsheet and tabloid formats – has held the largest daily sale, buoyed up by lots of promotion and distribution activity. The Irish Times climbed through the late 1990s and appears to have levelled out somewhere on the downside of 120,000 average daily. The Examiner's position and those of the various tabloids have remained reasonably solid. There is some overall contraction in the market. But in general it has been pretty good – against a world background of dwindling newspaper sales.

Nobody is quite sure how a fully-fledged, daily free-sheet will impact on this comfortably segmented market. But experience abroad suggests that it may be significant. From a standing start in the early 1990s, the concept of a fully-fledged newspaper, distributed free of charge in high-density urban areas, had challenged traditional business models in the industry across Europe.

It is important to be clear about what the product entails. Forget about the flimsy, weekly or fortnightly offerings on the stands outside the supermarkets, packed with press releases from local councillors and advertorial for tanning shops. The giveaways that have impacted significantly on their local markets are real newspapers, published daily, reporting news, with sport, entertainment, TV guides and so on.

The most successful free-sheet chains are Scandinavia-based. Of these, the largest is the Swedish Metro-group. Its first launch was in Stockholm in 1992. After a three-year battle against traditional daily titles, Metro secured the breakthrough it needed in the form of an agreement with the Stockholm public transport authorities for the distribution of the newspaper on trains and buses. With the Stockholm Metro in profit, the group rolled out titles in the Czech Republic (1996), Budapest (1998), Finland and the Netherlands (1999). In 2000 it launched in nine countries – Italy, Chile, USA, UK, Switzerland, Argentina, Greece, Poland and Canada. In 2001 it set up titles in Madrid and Copenhagen. In 2002 it was the turn of Paris, Hong Kong and Seoul. Last year it launched a new Metro in Lisbon.

At this writing, Metro claims to have 57 editions in 81 major cities, published in 17 languages across the world. Last year, Metro went national in Sweden and the national circulation is now in excess of 600,000.

Pelle Tornberg, the group's president and CEO claimed recently that three advertisements in Metro will enable advertisers to reach more than half of the under 40s in the country. That's a fairly powerful advertising tool.

The wonder is that the concept has taken so long to reach Ireland. Industry experts argue that the capital's public transport system has been so inadequate that distribution has been – and remains – a serious problem. However, with the advent of Luas and the further development of the Dart, the logistics are becoming more manageable. If 100,000 copies of Ireland's Metro can be successfully delivered into the hands of commuters in Dublin and elsewhere, five days a week, there's almost certainly a profit to be made.

The odds in favour of success will be greatly increased if the Associated Newspapers group succeeds in hammering out distribution agreements with the Luas and Dart companies. Iarnrod Éireann and Dublin Bus know they are in possession of a valuable asset in the form of a captive commuter readership. In the event that no agreement can be reached, plans are understood to be in hand to distribute Dublin's Metro close by but not actually within the precincts of Luas and Dart stations.

Ireland's Metro – by whatever name – is to be printed by The Irish Times Ltd plant. There has been talk of The Irish Times supplying some copy or taking a stake in the new title. Whether that is so, the printing contract will be a tidy earner and should serve to broaden the base of Irish Times revenues. Ironically, The Irish Times Ltd sold on its own free-sheet operation almost four years ago.

The big imponderable is what effect the new, free title will have on existing readership and sales patterns in the lucrative Dublin market.

The biggest threat would appear to be to the tabloids and to the Independent group. Independent is threatening to launch its own free-sheet and has reportedly advanced plans for doing so.

Much depends on the pitch and the scale of Metro's content. That, in turn, depends on the depth of Associated's pockets. But the experience of Ireland On Sunday confirms that the group is prepared to invest heavily in content and promotion.

If Associated's Metro covers the basic news, sport and entertainment, if it carries a couple of attractive promotional wheezes and if it can assemble a decent lifestyle/features offering, it could take readers from the Irish Independent – although not from its influential ABC1 cohort. It could even cost The Irish Times some readership, although the losses would be small.

If Metro begins to impact on the Independent's middle market, The Irish Times will be pleased. Then there is the further threat that Associated may launch an Irish Daily Mail in tandem with the free-sheet; although it is not easy to rationalise such a strategy. Anything that takes readership numbers from the Independent is good news for The Irish Times advertising managers. And anything that forces the Independent to devote editorial resources to defending its middle-market should be music to the ears of Irish Times editorial planners.

Time will tell. Metro will aim to take readers from wherever it can. And it will also be aiming to find new readers. Half a million adults in the greater Dublin area don't read any newspaper.

Conor Brady is Emeritus Editor of The Irish Times and a senior teaching fellow at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD, where he lectures in modern media