There was a ‘blimey, Dave’ moment here in the Van offices yesterday when it was discovered that thelondonpaper was to shut, three years after it hit the capital.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the closure of the freesheet has caused ripples across the London-centric media, with the story carried by almost all media outlets. The news also spread fast in the Twittersphere, with people divided on the paper’s merits: some will be glad to see fewer freesheets discarded in the evening, leaving the tubes awash with paper.
But some are sad to see it go with a Facebook campaign already underway, and debates about which of tlp’s features was the best. The fact that the top three items which readers hold dear to their commuting hearts are Pet of the Day, the Em cartoon and – everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure – the Lovestruck column reflect well the fact that the publication’s tone was indisputably light-hearted. (Of course, some might argue that after a day spent in the office, staring at screens and concentrating one’s way through meetings, a few pages of celebrity gossip and cute guinea pigs is no bad thing.)
The move signals the end of the freesheet wars, and possibly the end of evening freesheets altogether: many predict the imminent closure of thelondonpaper’s rival, London Lite, revealed as a competitor to tlp just days before the latter’s launch in the summer of 2006.
Some, like Will Heaven, not sad to see the end of tlp, hope that the move will encourage people to pay for their commuting reading matter. And the tlp’s demise may do the Evening Standard’s numbers some good, especially with their widely-trumpeted new, more positive editorial agenda.
But the closure of tlp isn’t just something for London’s Twitterers to debate, nor is the coverage of it something for non-Londoners to get cross about. The shutting of a widely-read newspaper has wider implications, not least the fact that it raises questions about competition within the media. Any decrease in competition is bad for the consumer, but in this case, it leaves Londoners in the midst of a media monopoly: the morning’s Metro and the evening’s Standard are both from the Associated Newspapers’ stable. Whatever your opinions on the editorial stance of Associated’s publications, the fact that they’re the only option has to be bad news for readers.
The closure of tlp is also a symptom of a wider malaise within the newspaper industry. Plummeting advertising revenues aren’t enough to keep publications afloat, and with the end of the Observer possibly nigh, and Murdoch’s announcement of the end of free online content there are plenty of indications that a media sea change is already taking place. The demise of tlp is simply the latest casualty.
That said, it’s a casualty that will be mourned by many, including those here at Van (how will we ever make out Lovestruck appearance now?!).
