Free Papers: Getting More Than You Pay For?

I was visiting Baron von Mom recently and while I was talking about the expansion of NYTimes.com, she was complaining that soon she won't have any paper to read. While I doubt the Times will stop printing its print edition any time soon, that day is coming at some point. Everyone in the newspaper biz is trying to figure out what the future of print is. We'll leave online journalism alone for the moment because that is where most content will go. But until the transition is complete, what happens to print?

In many large cities around the country, the free, ad-supported daily has become the answer. In New York, there are two such tabloids, filled with news tidbits, a handful of local stories and Sudoku. Those papers only publish on weekdays and are available in newspaper boxes throughout the city. Now, there is word that the free papers in Baltimore, Washington and San Francisco -- all owned by Philip Anschutz -- will begin free Sunday papers with home delivery. Now, I don't live in those cities so it may be that those papers are dreadfully unreadable and not worth the time and effort of lugging them into the house, but the model is an interesting one. It may not be possible for a straight media company. (Anschutz has a diverse empire with stakes in a variety of businesses). I don't know if these ventures lose money, but it's something the rest of the print industry should examine carefully as it may provide an answer to a confounding question.

These papers may not be exactly what Baron von Mom is looking for. Readers will likely get what they pay for with these papers -- lots of wire stories and brief roundups of events with little in-depth analysis -- but the model could be used in the future to prolong the life, and find a use for, the sagging print industry.