media guardian story lost count of which 1

Metro 'set to overtake Mirror'

Free newspaper Metro is making in excess of £8m profit a year and will overtake the circulation of the Daily Mirror within 12 to 18 months, its managing director said today.

The national freesheet Metro, which is owned by Daily Mail parent company Associated Newspapers, boosted its distribution to 1,358,890 in October, an increase of 10.6% from the previous month. In contrast, the Daily Mirror, Britain's third biggest-selling daily, sold an average of 1,525,477 copies a day in October, a fall of 4.68% year on year.

Steve Auckland, the managing director of Associated Newspapers' free newspapers division, said today that Metro recently added 250,000 nationwide to its distribution and plans to further increase this in 12 to 18 months' time. During this period it would overtake the Mirror, he said. "We will do in this time either by us putting on copies or them losing copies," he added. "I think in the next 12 to 18 months." Auckland revealed that the free morning paper's annual profit - which is shared with its publishing partners around the country - was "slightly higher" than £8m a year.

He did not disclose details of the freesheet's planned expansion, but said it would include new geographic areas over and above its current 16 cities. However, it would not be signing deals with new distribution partners, he said. These include Associated's sister company Northcliffe, the Mirror's owner Trinity Mirror and MEN, part of the Guardian Media Group, owner of MediaGuardian.co.uk.

Auckland appeared to forecast that Associated would have to fight to retain its exclusive morning distribution contract on the London Underground when it expires in three years' time. "We can hand distribute if we need to," he said, suggesting that even if Associated lost the contract to use Tube dump bins, Metro would employ the expensive tactic of hiring people to distribute the freesheet each morning.

Auckland is also responsible for London afternoon freesheet London Lite, which is fighting News International's the London Paper. Auckland claimed that London Lite has a greater readership despite the paper's audited distribution trailing its rival by nearly 100,000 copies. London Lite's revenue has "exceeded expectations", but the paper was years away from making a profit, Auckland said. He expressed doubts about the London Paper's claim that it would move into profit in two years. "If they do that they are miracle workers," Auckland said. "We say that at Lite that will take us five years."

I chose to discuss this story because we have recently studied ownership problems within the media, and I thought this is a good way of understanding it. It’s significant because as virtually everyone reads newspapers, (whether they are bought or picked up on the tube) and this change in ownership and editing will affect what’s published therefore changing what we read into someone’s views and opinions. I think it’s a good way of metro to expand but as this is already happening with loads of other elites, it really doesn’t leave much choice for the audience, there are loads of newspapers out there but many of them carry the same ideology, this isn’t in the best interest of the consumer.