Free Dailies in Europe Could Show U.S. a Thing or Two

Free newspapers have been gaining in popularity in major cities around the world, and some are beginning to make online extensions of their publications a priority. And some of those are doing a good job of harnessing aspects of the web 2.0, letting readers voice opinions, comment on blogs and participate in the news, which has been adding to publishers’ business success, writes MediaShift’s Mark Glaser.

A free daily in Spain, 20 Minutos, was one of the papers that began doing this well, beginning by offering readers the opportunity to post comments to stories. The feature was so popular that it was clear readers were enjoying what had effectively become a two-way conversation, and some of the big press in Spain have followed. Traditional newspaper giants El Pais and La Vanguardia have added blogs and citizen journalism to their online content mix, in addition to inviting readers to post comments to articles. In Switzerland, the regional version of 20 Minutes is the third most popular newspaper website in the country.
Schibsted Group, a Norwegian newspaper publishing company that owns 80 percent of 20 Minutos, and which publishes versions of the paper in other countries, has had similar successes. Schibsted’s online business contributed 35 percent of the company’s profits in 2005, and is expected to bring in 60 percent of the earnings this year, according to the New York Times.

What has happened in Spain and other parts of Europe hasn’t seemed to have taken off in the U.S. yet, however. The Examiner, with editions in San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., has struggled with its online edition and has recently relaunched with RSS feeds and blogs. Yet earlier in the year, The Examiner didn’t even have an online advertising team in place, writes Glaser.

Erin Teevings of the Bivings Report blog points out that most free newspapers online don’t have a consistent set of feature offerings. Glaser adds that when he purchases media in the print editions of these free papers, online ads are often thrown in as an extra.

He predicts that the online portions of these papers will become more sophisticated. He says it’s even possible that, as we move towards a greener society and these publications continue to get in trouble for distributing so many unwanted copies, they may be forced to take their business online.