Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries: The Newspaper Publishing Industry

2.4.2 Free 
newspapers 
Since 2000, free dailies were introduced on the market in Europe and started competing with 
paid-for dailies for advertising revenue. Free dailies are, for example, distributed in public 
transportation, universities, libraries and other public places. In 2008, the circulation of free 
newspapers was estimated to be approximately 30 million copies (OECD, 2010), almost 
double the circulation in 2004. In Europe, 23% of the daily newspapers were free in 2008. In 
the UK, Metro has a circulation of 1.35 million copies. In Spain four titles (20 Minutos, Que!, 
ADN and MetroDirecto) account for 3.5 million copies, in Italy three titles (Leggo, Metro and 
City) provide 2.74 million copies, in France two titles (20 Minutes and Metro) provide 1.72 
million copies every day. In Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands the circulation of the largest 
free daily newspapers is 605.000 (Metro), 530.000 (Heute) and 514.000 (Metro) respectively 
(OECD, 2010; WAN-IFRA, 2010). The top-20 of free dailies features 13 European free 
dailies (WAN-IFRA, 2010) (see Table 11). Russia has the largest number of free dailies 
(41).
18
18
Circulation figures in this paragraph are all from 2009. 

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Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries 
46
 
Table 11: Top 20 free dailies
Source: WAN-IFRA, 2010. 
Figure 13 shows the total average circulation of free dailies in the US, Japan, China and the 
five largest European news publishing countries, compared between 2005 and 2009. The 
market for free newspapers is diverse. China is a growth market for free dailies, while in 
Japan the market seems relatively insignificant. In Europe, the free dailies seem to have 
gained more ground than on other continents. In circulation, the UK, France, Italy and Spain, 
for example, top the US, Japan and China. In most countries circulations figures have grown 
substantially, only in the US there is a small decline in circulation figures and in Spain 
circulation of free dailies dropped with 24% between 2005 and 2009. The WAN-IFRA report 
(2010) does not provide statistics on the circulation of free dailies for Germany.