Quick-Read Newspaper Moves Fast

The Metro newspaper was just an idea five years ago.

Now the splashy, free daily tabloid is a must-read for hundreds of thousands of commuters in Stockholm, and editions in local languages are printed in a half dozen other European cities.

Plans are underway to start editions in the United States, South America and Asia.

“We aim to start publishing in as many cities as possible in as little time as possible,” said Metro’s editor in chief, Sakari Pitkanen.

In an era when many newspapers are seeing declines in readership and revenues due to competition from TV, radio and the Internet, Metro is drawing readers with a bright format of short stories and colorful graphics. Many items are just one paragraph, some just one sentence.

“You get a feeling you know what’s happened without having to dig too deep,” said Ulla Stenfors, who reads Metro each weekday on her subway ride to work.

Metro prints about 380,000 copies a day in Sweden, 130,000 in Helsinki, Finland, and 250,000 in the Netherlands. It also publishes in Prague, Czech Republic, and Budapest, Hungary, and plans to start editions soon in Philadelphia and Santiago, Chile.

An English-language Metro will hit the streets of the Newcastle region of northeastern England early in 2000, said Pelle Toernberg, the publisher’s chief executive. A Swiss version is promised for Zurich in the first half of the year.

Martin Blair, chief financial officer for Metro International, said the group also is looking at New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Sydney, Australia for future editions.

It remains to be seen if Metro’s formula can succeed everywhere, considering that many longtime papers have gone out of business and few new papers have established themselves. But Constantine Kamaras of the World Association of Newspapers thinks Metro may have prospects.

“They certainly have proven that they have a strong chance,” he said. “However, perhaps now newspaper publishers are becoming more concerned and will shape up and get ready to defend their territory.”

In London, for instance, Associated Newspapers launched its own free daily called Metro, and in the Netherlands, newspaper heavyweight De Telegraaf came out with its own free paper after Metro began its Dutch edition.

Metro works best in cities where public transportation systems are well developed, Kamaras said. But big-city papers with strong local news coverage could counter Metro’s business premise and limit its economic success, he said.

Metro relies solely on advertisements to make money--the Stockholm edition is packed with classified ads. It holds costs down by using the latest news production technology, keeping staffs to a minimum and distributing the paper by dropping bundles at busy spots like subway stops, ferry landings and bus stations.

About six of every 10 Stockholmers read the Metro at least twice a week, according to a recent survey. In Goteborg, Sweden’s second largest city where it debuted last year, three of 10 people read the paper at least twice weekly.

Half of Goteborg’s Metro readers are younger than 30--a coveted group that has proven tough for traditional newspapers to reach. The survey also found traditional papers haven’t lost many readers to Metro. Instead, their subscribers read Metro as a complement.

Ingela Wadbring, a media researcher at Goteborg University, said Metro strengthens the newspaper market by bringing in new readers.

“People who haven’t read a morning paper before have started to read Metro,” she said.

Immigrants, young people and people with low incomes read Metro almost exclusively.

In Stockholm’s less affluent areas, where newspaper readership traditionally has been lower, readership is now at almost the same level as the rest of Sweden--75%, Wadbring said.

Unlike many local competitors, the Metro format puts national and international news ahead of local news.

“Geography doesn’t matter. We know what’s in our readers’ minds,” Pitkanen said. “It’s an efficient, quickly read news summary of the most important events, and that’s what people want.”

All its city versions have a similar look--a simple layout with many graphics--that Pitkanen argues is attractive to readers.

While he feels that approach can succeed in many countries, he doesn’t think Metro’s expansion is a threat to competitors.

“Even if there were a paper named Metro in each country, there would be a whole lot more papers that weren’t named Metro,” he said.