• by May 5, 2004

MAN BITES BULL - In what media analysts are touting as the biggest newspaper war the city has seen since the Golden Age of the 40s, 50s and 60s, a far-flung array of publishing interests have plans to launch upwards of a dozen new metropolitan dailies in the Big Apple. Like Tribune Co.'s recently launched amNewYork, all will be free, or cheaper, and all are aimed at young, disenfranchised newspaper readers.

The disclosures follow Tuesday's announcement by Europe's Metro International SA, which today launched Metro, a new a.m. daily that inexplicably is being published entirely in Swedish. "We were as surprised as anyone else," Henry Scott, the paper's publisher told the Riff when asked about the unusual targeting strategy, "but we conducted some very sophisticated market research studies and they indicated that Swedes - particularly Swedish men age 18 to 34 - comprise a sizeable share of the New York market, that they prefer to consume news media in their native tongue, and, most importantly, they are a high-end demographic that is grossly under-served."

Scott, who so far counts austere home furnishings retailer Ikea as his only advertiser, said the study was conducted by market research concern, Rincon & Associates, and that the findings also have raised concerns that Nielsen's new local people meter ratings service does not adequately represent Swedes in the DMA. A Nielsen spokesman denied that Congress was looking into the matter, but when pressed, acknowledged that a U.N. commission, headed by former South Africa Constitutional Court Justice Richard J. Goldstone, was investigating it.

Meanwhile, a well-placed Nielsen source tells the Riff, the ratings researcher ironically has its own plans to launch a New York daily. It's also free and targeted at young men 18-34 of Northern European descent. "It'll be published in Dutch," said the executive, who declined to elaborate on the strategy other than to say it had to do with "some kind of VNU diversification plan." The paper's working title is The Count and it is scheduled to roll off the presses the third week of September.

But the most unusual new metro publishing model may be the one being developed by News Corp. News Corp., which already publishes The New York Post, plans to go the freebie papers one better, and will also offer ad pages free to advertisers. "It's an interesting strategy, but we're still taking a pass," a large Manhattan retailer tells the Riff, making a cryptic reference to "shoplifters."

While News Corp. has not finalized the strategy for its new metro, an insider says the plan is to get a jump on the competition by publishing it exclusively as a "bulldog edition" that will go to press during the wee hours of the morning, "when the other papers are still sleeping." The working title is Bull, says the source, adding, "Apparently, management is not that confident on its prospects. If and when it achieves a positive EBITDA, they say they will add 'dog'."

Even New York's hottest media titan, Bruce Wasserstein, is thinking of getting into the freebie daily game. Wasserstein, who recently bought New York magazine from Primedia, is said to be considering a companion daily newspaper spin-off. An executive familiar with the plan, however, says the initiative is stalled because of a couple of key impediments.

"First of all, they can't use the name they wanted: New York Herald Tribune. It's already tied up," says the executive adding the Wasserstein team has also been stymied in its efforts to recruit their first-pick editor. "Apparently, Clay isn't interested," he says, referring to Clay Felker, the legendary editor who ironically spawned New York magazine from the ashes of the Trib's Sunday magazine.

The sudden explosion in activity among big daily publishing concerns, meanwhile, is putting pressure on New York's freebie weeklies, and causing at least one of those to rethink its publishing model, too.

"Free schmee," exclaims, T. Herman Zweibel, fictional publisher of The Onion. "If those guys are going to publish for free, we'll start paying people to read our New York edition."