Boston Now for April 17
The new Boston free daily Boston Now is scheduled for April 17. The paper is financed by Icelandic media company Dagsbrun. Russel Pergament, former publisher of the Boston Metro and Am New York is running the operation. He is also CEO of the American branch of Dagsbrun, called 365 Media USA, which has plans for free dailies in other US cities as well. Chief editor is John Wilpers (Washington Examiner, Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and Boston Metro). Wilpers to PBS: “I was the editor that took it [Boston Metro] from about 150,000 readers to 500,000″. In 2004 Wilpers revealed to blogger Rory O’Connor details about racist jokes being made by Metro executives – the scandal resulted in postponing the deal between Metro and the New York Times. Until the launch Wilpers can be read on his blog. Blogs and other “user generated content” will be important for the new paper. Even the editorial meetings will be online. Initial circulation of Boston Now will be 150,000 – distribution will be through public transport mainly.
Meanwhile the Boston Metro (circulation 170,000) closed a deal with baseball team the Boston Red Sox to distribute the official free game day publication Metro GameDay at all 81 home and postseason games, Circulation will be 15,000. The Boston Globe meanwhile announced that they will cut 24 news jobs.
Sources: Boston Herald, E&P, PBS, Media Infocenter
April 17th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
[...] second free daily in Boston, Boston Now launched today (see previous post). Circulation is around 150,000. According to the website the paper is still looking for promotors [...]