Farewell LondonLite

I, for one, will be sorry when the last edition of London Lite hits the streets on Friday 13th.

I’m already missing those purple jacketed distributors irritatingly shouting "free London paper, free London paper, free London paper", as they shoved a copy of thelondonpaper in your hand.

There has always been the big debate as to whether the free, London evening newspapers offered real news, but they have been a must for me on the long journey home after work.

Whether you want a few snippets of news, a bit of gossip, sports info, a look at your Stars or if only to see the endless pics of celebs looking worse for wear, falling out of nightclubs in the early hours of the morning, the newspapers were free, for goodness sake.

It was also refreshing to see how creatively the various ad shapes and sizes were utilised by advertisers, when allowed to produced something entirely different from the norm. Not many newspapers have offered the creativity, seamlessly merged with editorial that was allowed in the LondonLite - strange shapes, corner pieces etc. Which publisher will rise to that challenge now?

From an advertising point of view, there are those who say that the titles were not read and were a useless vehicle for branding and response advertisers, maybe because they were seen littering the carriages of tubes and trains.

However, if they were taken, read and left behind, does that mean that, as consumers, we did not absorb the information within? I have been known, on the odd occasion, to tear out an advertisement from one of these newspapers, seeing something that interested me, and follow up on-line or by phone. I’m just a consumer like the rest of those readers?

The sad truth is, that despite reaching a large audience, with a fresh new approach to editorial format, the numbers just did not add up. During the recession and with so much competition in the marketplace, all chasing the same advertiser money pot, the titles could not survive and profit.

Well, we still have Metro in the mornings but now we are left with the FREE London Evening Standard as our choice after work. We’ll just have to wait and see how that title evolves...

Jackie Irish