Cover on 2 March 2010
|
|
Type | Freesheet |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid |
Owner(s) | DMG Media |
Editor | Ted Young |
Founded | 16 March 1999 |
Headquarters | Kensington, London, U.K. |
Circulation | 1,475,543 (as of December 2016) |
ISSN | 1469-6215 |
OCLC number | 225917520 |
Website | www |
Metro is a free newspaper published in tabloid format in the United Kingdom by DMG Media (part of Daily Mail and General Trust). It is distributed from Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays) on many public-transport services and stations in cities and towns across the United Kingdom. Distributors have also been employed to hand out copies to pedestrians.
The paper was launched in London on 16 March 1999, and can now be found in many towns and cities across the UK. It is part of the same media group as the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, although, in some areas, Metro operates as a franchise with a local newspaper publisher, rather than as a wholly owned concern.
The Metro concept comes from Sweden. Metro International, a different company, launched in the UK in 1999, and, in Newcastle upon Tyne, this company's paper was distributed on the Tyne and Wear Metro system side by side with the Metro of Associated Newspapers (now DMG Media). After battling alongside the Associated Newspapers' version with the same name, Metro International's Metro changed its name to Morning News. However, Morning News was short-lived, being discontinued shortly afterwards (see Metro International). Metro International have had plans to launch a rivalling free evening newspaper in London.
Similarly, Rupert Murdoch is said to have regretted missing the opportunity of launching his own London paper. However, News International, a UK subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation, launched a London-based newspaper in 2006 called The London Paper, using funding from Liam McDonald. This was closed on 18 September 2009.