Free every day

Compared to the previous year, paid daily newspapers in France lost between 0.6 and 1.7 percent of their readers in the 2005/2006 fiscal year, while free papers recorded 4.3 percent growth. In total, roughly 23 million people in France ready a daily paper. The free 20 Minutes and Metro papers take 3rd and 6th place in the reader rankings. The list of all daily papers is headed by the L'Equipe sports paper (2.5 million readers), followed by the Ouest France regional paper. Free papers today account for a market share of roughly 27 percent. In Iceland, free dailies have conquered 65 percent of the market, and their share in Denmark and Spain is in excess of 50 percent. In Switzerland, they make up a good one-third of the distributed circulation, the major papers distributing more than 200,000 copies per day.

Developments in the UK are currently dramatic. In Greater London, the three market leaders, Metro, thelondonpaper and London Lite, together distribute roughly 1.5 million copies per day. In Manchester, the paid newspaper Manchester Evening News lost a quarter of its circulation as a result of the free competition and now likewise intends to switch to free distribution.

Only Germany has so far escaped this development. The market share there is in the region of one percent. In 1999, the German newspaper publishers engaged in aggressive marketing activities to obstruct the attempts of Scandinavian publishing houses to gain a footing on the German market with the help of free papers. You can find more information  here