Luxemburger Wort is still the paper with the highest circulation, more than 70,000. The frees follow on 2nd and 3rd palce.

Also in Iceland, Spain, Portugal and Denmark more free than paid dailies are distributed. Switzerland and Italy are approaching the 50% mark.

In December 2007, 60 percent of the Metro shares were bought by Mafra, the publisher of Metropolitní Expres. It was already announced at that time that both operations would be integrated in 2008.

Metropolitní Expres was launched in April 2006 and had a circulation of 200,000. Mafra, owned in majority by German publisher Rheinische Post (Düsseldorf, Germany) also publishes paid daily Dnes.

After the closure of  Metropolitní Expres three free dailies remain in the Czech Republic: Metro, 24 hodin (by Swiss publisher Ringier) and free business daily E15. In 2006, free daily Kuryr closed down after a few months.

In October 2007 L’Essentiel was launched by Edita (Das Tageblatt) and Swiss publisher Tamedia (20 Minuten). Point24, the second free daily by publisher Saint Paul was launched in November 2007.

The paper counts 32 pages and claims a ciruclation of 60,000; equal to that of competitor L’Essentiel. Also distribution is rather similar, concentrating on public transport.

Publisher Saint-Paul, controlled by the Catholic Church in Luxembourg, also owns leading daily Luxemburger Wort, French language daily La Voix du Luxembourg, radio stations, magazines and bookshops.

After De Telegraaf (704,000), free daily Metro is now the second daily with a circulation of 517,000 (+11%), while free daily De Pers (launched in 2007), is third with a circulation of 479,000. AD is fourth.

Free dailies Spits and DAG (launched 2007) are fifth and sixth with 421,000 (+5%) and 361,000 copies.

Unlike European sports papers, Sport Dong- A is much more a general paper. It counts 28 pages, most of them in color, while also music, culture, show business and general news is covered. Two pages are devoted to comics while there are is also a horoscope, puzzles, TV-listings etc. Circulation, however, is unclear. (more…)

Reactions (E&P) from the market are mixed because possible synergies of the new group are still uncertain.

In terms of readership free dailies lag behind, 40 million Italians read dailies, 67% reads paid dailies, 35% free dailies and 21% online dailies.

In Italy seven free dailies are published, national titles Leggo, City, Metro, EPolis, 24 minuti, and DNews, and two local papers: Anteprima Corriere and In Città.

German-language publishers have ‘invaded’ Eastern Europe since the nineties. The most important players being WAZ and Springer from Germany and Swiss publisher Ringier. Apart from that, also Styria, Vorarlberger Nachrichten (Austria), Rheinische Post, Passauer Neue Presse (Germany), and Edipresse (Switzerland) are active in Eastern Europe.

Styria’s main non-Austrian activities are in Croatia and Slovenia were they publish paid and free dailies. Almost a quarter of Styria’s revenues is now coming from these international operations. (more…)

These remarks are in line with Metro’s observation in Spain were apparently a war on advertising rates is going on with Metro, ADN and Qué! fighting for the no. 2 position.

Swedish free daily Punkt.se is still losing money: NOK. 37m (€4.7m) in Q1 2008.

Home-delivery will restricted to Thursday and Sunday. The Examiner always relied on home-delivery but the model apparently was too expensive and led to a rather low number of readers per copy.

This probably will lead to less circulation although readership might profit from the move as the circulation on Thursday and Sunday will be higher. (more…)

Le 24 Heures de Gatineau was launched in November 2006 in Gatineau, together with an English edition of 24 Hours in neighboring city Ottawa. Unlike the French edition, 24 Hours Ottawa is pretty successful and will continue to be published.

Canada is - contrary to the US - a market with high competition of free dailies in all major markets. Metro has seven editions with a total circulation of more than 800,000 while the Quebecor/Sun free daily 24 hours/heures is available in six markets with a total circulation of 700,000. CanWest publishes Rush Hour in three markets.

Apart from that local titles and the lock-out paper Media Matin are published. Total circulation is around 1.7 million. Paid circulation is around 4.5 million.

A Persoenlich interview today with publisher Peter Wanner suggested that the launch never will take place - at least not in 2008.

Wanner gives three reasons: the economy is not developing in the right direction, except 20 Minuten none of the Swiss free dailies is making a profit and they also have not won the hearts of advertisers and readers.

Wanner is also complaining about advertising rates that seem to be under pressure, although he’s not sure that free dailies - with substantial discounts - are responsible for that.

Metro started in 2002 and was followed  in 2003 by Daily Focus and AM7 and in 2004 by Daily Zoom, Sports Hankook and Good Morning Seoul. The last title folded after a year but in 2006 Daily NoCutNews was launched while The City and economic paper IlIlKyungJe followed one year later. IlIlKyungJe closed down after some months.

In March, however, a 8th paper started, free sports daily Sport Dong-A.

The City is targeting a somewhat different audience because of its afternoon distribution. The paper is meant to be taken to the home and read by several family members.

In the first year the paper lost its publisher, introduced a new design, moved closer to paid sister paper de Volkskrant and tried to reach a better educated target group.

The first year will be celebrated with a special ‘good news’ issue. Six pages will be devoted to ‘good news’.

Repondents are more leaning to free than a year ago while Europeans are the moste careful: “56 percent of respondents believed that the majority of news, be it via print or online, would be free in the future. That was up from 48 percent who answered yes a year ago. Those leaning towards the free model mostly came from ‘emerging’ newspaper markets in areas such as South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia where 61 percent of respondents believed news would be free. Respondents in Western Europe were less likely to believe in news becoming free, with 48 percent of news executives thinking it likely, while North American editors were on par with the average.”

By the way, the heading “Newspapers likely to be free in the future” is Reuters, not mine.

The other three sports papers AS (1.2 million), Mundo Deportivo (646,000 visitors) and Sport (624,000 visitors) are 3rd, 4th and 5th.

The website of free daily 20 Minutos follows with 547,000 visitors. Other free dailies and paid daily El Mundo are not included in the research. (Publicitas newsletter)

When leading Swiss paid paper Blick went for an extreme makeover in March they decided there was not place left for Hagar the Terrible, a popular comic strip by then.

Free daily ‘.ch‘ bought the exclusive rights for Switzerland and will publish it from today on. (Persoenlich)

Destak is second with 175,000 distributed copies while Metro follows with 173,000. Meia Hora distributes 76,000 copies and free business paper OJE 23,000.

Paid paper Jornal de Noticias is the best-circulated paid paper with 102,000 copies. (publicitas newsletter)