Industry News

The London Evening Standard to raise distribution

The London Evening Standard has confirmed that it plans to swell its distribution by an extra 100,000 copies from October - a year after the Alexander Lebedev-owned title ditched its 50p cover price.

Executives at the newspaper had previously hinted they would push to increase its distribution from 600,000 to 700,000 copies. However, the final decision depended on positive signs in the advertising market.

It has now confirmed it will go ahead with the plans from October this year. The 100,000 new copies will not be distributed in new regions, but dispersed across existing distribution points in Greater London.

The move follows reports that the title is set to become profitable for the first time under its new Russian ownership.

According to the latest National Readership Survey (NRS) figures, the London Evening Standard attracted an average of 1.35 million readers a day between October 2009 and March 2010.

Between October 2008 and March 2009, the 50p London Evening Standard was pulling in a daily average readership of 586,000.

A year on, and it has a readership figure of 1.35 million on a distribution of 600,000.

As a comparison, in 2008 the now-defunct free title, London Lite, lured in 1.29 million readers on a distribution of around 400,000.

The rival thelondonpaper registered a readership of 1.03 million, on a distribution of around 500,000 in the same year. 

However, the audited figures were recorded when both the London Lite and thelondonpaper had then been published for more than two years – longer than the free Standard.

John Reynolds - mediaweek.co.uk