European Free Newspaper Market Share Ranges from 72% in Iceland to Just 6% in Austria, But Already Free Newspapers are Circulation Leaders In Spain and Switzerland With More Free Newspapers Coming

And when you take into account that the non-free Morgunbladid and DagbladidVisir between them have about another 60,000 circulation it is fairly obvious that Iceland is a country that likes to read newspapers, albeit free newspapers. And it is not so much that circulations have dropped that dramatically for the paid-for newspapers rather than the free newspapers have opened a whole new readership.

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And those numbers are why Piet Bakker at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research at the University of Amsterdam, who devotes a very respected web site to what he calls “Free Daily Newspapers, the reinvention of the newspaper”, lists Iceland as the leading European country in which free newspapers have the largest newspaper market share with 72%.

Second, considerably further behind is Spain in which free newspapers have a still rather surprisingly high 46% market share, given how vibrant the paid-for newspaper market is. On the other hand, free newspapers are also a very vibrant competitive market in Spain, with many cities having three, some even four, free dailies.

But the latest statistics have come as a bit of a shock -- 20 Minutes has now surpassed El Pais for Spain’s highest readership, claiming 2,298,000 to El Pais’ 2,048,000.

Leading newspapers like El Mundo quickly understood that in such a battle between free and paid-for newspapers that getting it right early on with the Internet was vital. El Mundo now has about 8 million unique visitors each month making it the largest Spanish speaking web site globally, and also the most visited European newspaper web site.

And it achieved the distinction of being the only Spanish newspaper this year to actually increase its print circulation – notching up another 2,365 for a total 312,849 compared to El Pais’ 458,000.

Free newspaper distribution in Europe stood at around 11 million at the end of last year. It has grown by at least one-third in 2005. Switzerland is as good an example as any of why. It was only last year in Switzerland that 20 Minutes just edged past perennial circulation leader Blick, but 12 months later, even though Blick had turned tabloid itself to turn the tide, the 20 Minutes lead was extended by another 200,000 copies daily.

And free newspapers are readying to battle it out in new and existing markets. The French speaking part of Switzerland – linguistically far smaller than the German speaking part -- had no free newspaper at all until October 31 when Edipresse started publishing Le Matin Bleu in addition to its paid-for Le Matin. Prior to that, the Geneva population was taking so many free copies from honor boxes of the Tribune de Geneve that the newspaper had to place large signs on the boxes declaring it was not a free newspaper. Edipresse says it makes about 110,000 copies of Le Matin Bleu available Monday to Friday.

But Tamedia, which bought out Schibsted a year ago to take control of the Swiss 20 Minutes published just in German, has announced it will print a French language edition in March, 2006 with a circulation in the largest French-speaking Swiss cities – Geneva and Lausanne – estimated at 120,000.

Meanwhile, back in the German-speaking part of the country, Ringier is taking the pragmatic view that since it couldn’t beat 20 Minutes with its Blick paid-for tabloid, then one might as well launch one’s own free PM tabloid which it plans to do in early 2006 in Zurich, Basel, and Berne.

Elsewhere, in Dublin, where three tabloids battle it out for a combined 300,000 circulation, two new free tabloids entered the battle in October. Metro Ireland and Herald AM -- there was a big legal tussle beforehand on who got to use the Metro name – were pretty close in their first ABCs. Herald AM scored a 66,047 circulation and Metro Ireland had 55,196. Both papers on average had about 30% advertising. The three existing paid-for tabloids experienced slight circulation declines.

Bakker says there are free newspapers today in 36 countries with 22 million copies distributed daily. Metro, the market leader, publishes about seven million copies daily in 59 editions, 48 of them in Europe with eight in the Americas and three in Asia.

And while there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the free newspapers may get 10-20% of their readership from the paid-for newspapers, it also appears that like the low-cost airlines that are getting new customers that just didn’t fly before, so too are free newspapers gaining customers that were not previously part of print readership – whether it was because of cost or whether the newspaper just plain didn’t satisfy needs.

The question, of course, is whether at the end of the day there are enough readers available to fulfill both business models.