Research on London free dailies brands
London has three major free titles, Metro in the morning and two afternoon papers: London Lite and thelondonpaper. The last two titles were introduced in late summer 2006, Metro was launched in 1999. Lars Thomas Klausch researched for his thesis at the Imperial College in London how readers in London experienced and valued the different ‘brands’.
240 respondents were interviewed for the project, half of them read a free paper several times a week or every day. The well written thesis which can be downloaded from here contains lots of interesting results on how the different brands are seen by the public. Metro, for instance, is seen as much more traditional-journalistic than the afternoon papers, while thelondonpaper is seen as more juvenile-modern and London Lite as more stereotype-tabloid.
But in general, the two afternoon papers don’t seem to be valued very differently. Their content is seen by readers a very similar. When people read free papers more often they tend to have a more positive attitude towards the paper, but even non-frequent readers of Metro rate the paper quite high. Non-frequent readers of the afternoon papers on the other hand have a rather negative attitude towards them.
The thesis [pdf, 60 pages] will also be on the ‘resources’ page.