Free is in Favor: Dailies Who Give It Away
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006The Chicago Tribune stuck its proverbial toe in the pond of free-circulation papers back in 2002, launching RedEye, a Monday-Friday tabloid aimed at professionals in their 20s and 30s. Now, editor Jane Hirt says in an interview with journalismjobs.com the paper has “gone all the way,” moving from a paid-free hybrid to one that’s available at no cost and subsists on advertising revenue alone:
“We switched to better serve our audience and to boost our growth,” she says. “During the years of the free/paid hybrid model, we were about 80% free- 20% paid. Circulation revenue was never a large part of th epicture, and we found that we could support our paper and be profitable with ad revenue alone. Going 100% free also allowed RedEye to grow faster (which we did) and allowed us to cut the infrastructure costs associated with collecting money.”
Okay. We’re hip to that. But she should have stopped there. The reasoning got a little fractured from then on:
“Free is also more convenient for our readers, many of whom are rushing to work in the morning and don’t have time to dig for a quarter. We were basically free all-along, now w’re just more free.”
Like, cool.
