Free at point of sale

The jade-green Metro logo is a common sight during rush-hour on the London underground, the New York subway and the Warsaw metro.

The concept was developed in Sweden, where in 1995 the first copies of Metro appeared on the streets of Stockholm. Now, Metro International, the publisher of the most popular free newspaper, issues its product in 81 major cities in 17 different languages and has imitators all over the world.

Poland is no different. The main free dailies are Metro, published by Agora, and Metro International's Metropol. There is also Echo Miasta, which is issued every two days, and the weekly Dzień Dobry.

Hot off the presses

"Last year, the market witnessed an absolute explosion of free dailies. The dynamic development has been progressing since 2004 and its growth potential is enormous, as the share in readership doesn't yet correspond with the share in advertising revenues," said Sławomir Jędrzejewski, corporate sales director in Agora.

"The readers' profile in the case of free dailies is very interesting for advertisers, as the majority of them are professionally active city dwellers under the age of 45 with a big purchase potential. At the moment, free dailies only have a three-percent share in press-advertising revenues, but it simply has to change," he added.

In 2005 free dailies in Poland experienced a boost in their advertising revenues with zł.139 million in 2005 against zł.99 million a year earlier.

An 'irregular' read

"For the time being it seems that free dailies don't steal readers from traditional papers - they are an instant and irregular read and people still buy 'their' titles. But when it comes to advertising, companies usually have a fixed amount to spend on promotion and they have to share it among the papers available on the market. Free dailies target a similar group as tabloids, such as Fakt or Super Express, so the last two might have to give away part of the revenues," says Jan Roman, a media planner in Media Direction OMD.

Recent research shows that in cities of above 500,000 inhabitants Metro has a bigger readership than Fakt, while Metropol surpasses Super Express.

Local losses

"Free dailies are closest to tabloids and the regional press, and the latter lose most on their appearance on the market. Agora owns both a quality paper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and the most popular free daily in Poland, Metro. The cross-readership in the case of those two titles is only five percent," explains Jędrzejewski.