The recent 100th edition of my beloved Stylist magazine got me thinking about the changing face of content on the streets of London. Commuters now have an embarrassment of riches from which to choose when it comes to free reading matter: Stylist on a Wednesday is followed by Shortlist and Sport on Thursdays and Fridays respectively, with Metro and City AM free every weekday morning - and, of course, the Evening Standard for the journey home. The fact that none of these cost a penny is great, but more important than that is the high editorial quality – they contain things that people actually want to read.

The free paper phenomenon started with News International’s The London Paper and Associated Newspaper-produced London Lite in 2006. Both were criticised for lightweight content and ceased publication in late 2009 – a result both of slipping circulation numbers and the Evening Standard becoming free. Critically, the ES has since maintained its editorial quality, a fact recognised with its 2010 victory in the Media Week awards, at which it won two of the most prestigious accolades in publishing – Media Brand of the Year and the Grand Prix Gold.
Since then however, there have been some new faces at the party – Stylist and Shortlist, published by Shortlist Media, as well as a revitalised Sport magazine. These magazines are free yet premium, self-consciously branding themselves…’freemium’. The idea is simple: lure customers in with free, high-quality content, and make money from advertising, a concept surely validated by its inclusion as a task on this year’s Apprentice!

It’s certainly not just about being free, as the quality of the content is vital – in the words of Karl Marsden, Managing Director of Shortlist Media, “no-one does the ‘thousand-yard stare’ like a British commuter intent on reaching their destination.” The combination of a free, desirable, high-quality magazine with reliable distribution channels is built to lure customers in and ultimately generate revenue from advertising.
Some, however, doubt the sustainability of this revenue stream, suggesting that as competition increases as free content proliferates, the money raised from advertising will diminish, raising doubts in turn about the sustainability of the whole model. There is no doubt that the world of written content is in a huge state of flux. Indeed, Mike Soutar, founder of Shortlist Media, attributes the rise of the ‘freemium’ magazine to the evolution of online content and customers’ subsequent expectations that they can access high quality journalism for free. And yet the basis of this assumption is already changing, as certain publications erect paywalls around some of their online content.
I know that as an avid Stylist reader I’m not going to stop eagerly taking my copy outside Goodge Street station every Wednesday morning. For now, I hope that the virtuous circle of a free magazine with high-quality content and money raised solely from advertising continues. The only worry is that one of these things will slip and we will move from virtuous circle to vicious cycle.
As mentioned above, a key concern is the ongoing viability of revenue from advertising. This could mean one of many things. Perhaps certain magazines will disappear altogether as their business model becomes less valid, or less drastically, their editorial standards will slip as they are forced to lay off staff. Might certain ‘freemium’ magazines start charging, gambling on the loyalty of their readership? This seems unlikely in a cluttered market, though the establishment of paywalls around previously free online content suggests that it shouldn’t be totally ruled out.

However, I believe that the answer, at least for the near future, might lie in this week’s subtle change to the Metro newspaper: more advertising. But for levels of quality to stay the same as advertising becomes less valuable, the hope has to be that revenue from increased volume sales offsets the lower price at which it can be sold.
Whilst I don’t know the answer, my fear is that the ‘freemium’ market as it stands isn’t stable in the long-term and a higher proportion of free magazine space will soon be taken up by advertising. I certainly hope this isn’t the case, but at the moment I’d advise you to watch this space.
By Jessica Enoch on November 8th, 2011
Tags: Advertising, Media, Paywall, PR







































