Last year not many national newspapers made big money – in fact some lost a lot of it set against declining circulations. One paper however, The Metro, made its seventh successive year of profit.
In fact, last year the paper, which has a circulation of 1.3 million distributed free across 16 cities, had more display advertising than any other UK generalist (114,647 single column centimetres compared to 94,875ccms at The Sun for the statisticians among you).
So with much talk about the demise of newspapers how is it that The Metro turns in a profit year after year without charging a cover price and are there any clues of the newspaper of the future (on and offline) in this?
Looking in from the outside, the success would seem to boil down to two simple reasons.
Firstly – content. The Metro knows its audience and it’s not trying to be anything more then what it is – a quick commute read.
No in-depth articles, no weighty columnists and little analysis – just a bite sized chunk of news meant to last as long as your tube/bus/train journey or if you like an offline version for an online audience – or what they refer to as ‘City Clickers’. This amalgamation of easy news comes with probable lower overhead costs from staf size to news gathering.
Secondly – a closer relationship between commercial and editorial or a breakdown of the old ‘church and state’ mentality.
Few barriers exist – your brand wants to wrap the paper? Not a problem. Sponsor whole sections? Sure thing. An advertorial in the house style? Editorial will even write it for you. In addition, there is a clear link between the offline and online products with commercial links across both.
The Metro gets away with it partly because it’s free. As a consumer, I don’t mind commercial spill-over into editorial, I see it as a decent trade off for getting a free read on my tube journey in.
But it’s this blurring of the line that gives clues to the future for the wider industry. It’s no surprise that there are increasingly numbers of ex-journalists in the commercial teams at papers helping brands to run ‘integrated’ campaigns but it’s a difficult balancing act to maintain – editorial independence and powerful journalism versus commercial reality.
While it continues to vex established national newspapers (The Times Online recent move behind a paywall is an attempt to address it), The Metro has proved it knows its audience and although it may be a dangerous sign for in-depth, quality journalism you have to admire its ability to buck the trend.
By Dominic Curran on June 28th, 2010
Tags: Brand marketing, Communications, Digital marketing, Media, Paywall






