Free newspapers

Free newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, on public transport, with other newspapers, or separately door-to-door. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising. Some are dailies, some are weeklies.

In 1885 the (Germany) was launched. The paper was founded in 1882 by Charles Coleman (1852–1936), whose family was from Scotland, as a free twice-a-week advertising paper in the Northern German town of Lübeck. In 1885 the paper went daily. From the beginning the General-Anzeiger für Lübeck had a mixed model, for 60 pfennig it was home delivered during three months. Unknown, however, is when the free distribution ended. The company website states that the ’sold’ circulation in 1887 was 5,000; in 1890 total circulation was 12,800 in 1890.

In 1906 the Australian Manly Daily was launched. It was distributed on the ferry boats to Sydney and is now published as a free community daily by Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd.

In 1984 the Birmingham Daily News was launched in Birmingham, England. It was distributed free of charge on weekdays to 300,000 households in the West Midlands and was the first such publication in Europe. It was profitable until the early 1990s recession, when it was converted into a weekly title by its then owners Reed Elsevier. By 1992, a number of former paid-for local newspapers in the United Kingdom, such as the Walsall Observer, were being closed down and converted to free newspapers (sometimes called "freesheets").

In 1995, the same year the Palo Alto Daily News began, Metro started what may be the first free daily newspaper distributed through public transport in . Later, Metro launched free papers in many European and other countries. In the UK, the Daily Mail and General Trust group launched its own edition of Metro (see Metro (Associated Metro Limited)) in London in 1999, effectively beating Metro International to the London market. The paper now has 13 editions across the country and a combined readership of 1.7 million.

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