• by Erik Sass , December 15, 2005

After ominous speculation that a new breed of free commuter newspapers (with names like A.M. New York, Metro, Red Eye, Express, and Quick) might depress the circulation of established tabloids and broadsheets in big cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, a new study shows that the free dailys have indeed netted millions of readers, but not at any substantial cost to subscription papers or tabloids.

Only six months ago, Karen DeWitt--editor in chief of the Washington, D.C. free daily Examiner--could declare with confidence on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer: "We're going to take their lunch. We're going to take their lunch from them, because I tell you, this is the wave of the future." In the same broadcast, newspaper analyst John Morton explained the rise of the free dailys, worrying: "Newspaper readers are dying off faster than they're being replaced. People who use the Internet have been conditioned not to pay for what they get."

But it turns out the newspaper wars aren't over yet. According to a study recently completed by The New York Times and Scarborough Research, a market research company, "most of the readers of free tabloids also subscribe to one or more pay-dailies. Consumers are adding the tabloid to their regular newspaper consumption, not replacing one with the other..."

Of course, as a pay daily, The New York Times has an interest in spreading around this particular finding--but some of the study's other conclusions about the shortcomings of free dailys have the ring of truth. Aside from journalistic complaints (e.g., very low overhead allows scant reporting, if any, with wire rewrites dominating content) the dailys have made a muddle of their outreach efforts to a prize demographic: young professionals with disposable income who want to stay current on cultural events, local sports, and other local news of interest to them.

"Only 22 percent dealt with their home town" on the front page, the study found, compared with 53 percent of broadsheet papers. More telling, perhaps: "[n]ot only are the new youth-oriented tabloids light on tailoring their narratives to the young, only 16 percent of the stories in the youth-oriented tabloids are about the coveted 18-35-year-olds--and most of those are about celebrities."

Celebrities are an eternal wellspring of interesting news, of course, but the same reporting is also provided by pay tabloids--and the tabs undeniably do a better job here, with longer, salacious, fun-to-read pieces from staff reporters on celebrity doings du jour. The pay tabs also offer the continuity of celebrity "beat" reporting--for example, needling celebs in vendettas that make the paper itself part of the story.

The Times/Scarborough study can't say with certainty how much time readers spend reading a pay tab or broadsheet versus the free dailys, even if they still subscribe to the former. Meanwhile, competition between free dailys and tabs could still drive content quality high enough to give pay tabs a run for their money. But for the time being, it's still up in the air.