Summary

Today it is possible to put a date on a watershed in the history of the daily press. There is pre-1995 (the year in which Metro was first launched in Stockholm) and what happened afterwards. The international success of the concept of a free daily has entirely changed publishers’ views in three respects. Firstly, it is not necessarily the case that two categories of the population take little or no interest in newspapers, i.e. women, and the “young” (defined as those younger than 35). Secondly, a group that has no experience in newspaper publishing but sufficient financial means and long-term ambitions may create a viable daily newspaper from scratch. (This was the case of MTG Publishing, a subsidiary of the Modern Times Group, which itself is a subsidiary of the Swedish group Kinnevik.) Finally, there is no great difference in readers’ expecta-tions, whether in Singapore, Stockholm or Buenos Aires. In fact, the list of lessons learned is much longer and varies subtly according to the country examined. In London for instance, a press group as traditional as Asso-ciated Newspapers, by its speedy decision and its determi-nation, proved that it was possible to counter such an initiative and to reap the benefits of this new concept. In Germany, a very difficult market to penetrate because of the legislative autonomy of the Länder and the financial resources of local press groups (precious few foreign groups are present), a Norwegian group (Schibsted) sowed panic amongst local publishers by launching a free daily in Cologne. Whatever their name may be – Metro, 20 Minuten, Sp!ts, Streats or Morning News – free newspapers through-out the world have important features in common: the frequency (essential in order to establish the product durably)