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Metro (Associated Metro Limited)
Encyclopedia
Metro is a free daily newspaper
in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd (part of Daily Mail and General Trust
). It is available from Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays) each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.
, Brighton
, Bristol
, Cardiff
, Derby
, Edinburgh
, Glasgow
, Leeds
, Leicester
, Liverpool
, London
, Manchester
, Nottingham
, Newcastle
and Sheffield
. It is part of the same media group as the Daily Mail
and The Mail on Sunday
, although in some areas, the paper operates as a franchise
with a local newspaper publisher, rather than as a wholly owned concern.
The Metro concept comes from Sweden. Metro International
, a different company, launched in the UK in 1999 and in Newcastle upon Tyne was distributed side by side with the Associated Newspapers' version on the Tyne and Wear Metro
system. After battling alongside the Associated Newspapers' version with the same name, it changed its name to Morning News. It was short-lived, however, and Morning News was discontinued shortly afterwards (see Metro International). They have had plans to launch a rivalling free evening newspaper in London
. Similarly, Rupert Murdoch
is said to have regretted missing the opportunity of launching his own London paper. However, News International
, a UK subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation
, launched a London-based newspaper in 2006 called thelondonpaper
. This was closed on 18 September 2009.
(by Lise Myhre
), 118 118 (by Clive Collins) (advertisement comic strip) and This Life
(by Rick Brookes
), astrology
readings by Nikki Harper, and Sudoku
. Previously, it featured a crossword
(in place of the sudoku puzzle), David J. Bodycombe
's Think Tank brainteasers and a Judge Dredd
strip.
On 8 July 2009, the online version of Metro was merged with London Lite.
In 2005, Metro launched a science page called MetroCosm. This is written, illustrated and edited by Ben Gilliland and has received acclaim from scientists and the public alike for its accessibility, accuracy and its fearless approach to complex subjects.
In 2010, Ben Gilliland was nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award for Best Space Reporting and again in 2011 for the Arthur Clarke award for Achievement in Space Media. There is an online version (run by Ben Gilliland) called CosmOnline.
With the announcement of the UK General Election, Metro's ownership by Daily Mail and General Trust
has seen it following the lead given by the paid-for Daily Mail
in taking an openly pro-conservative line. This has seen it publishing a series of front page articles and headlines supportive of the Conservative Party
and critical of both the previous Labour
Government and the Liberal Democrats
.
, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. In October 2008, its total certified distribution for that month was 1,361,306. It now prints approximately 1.3m copies daily, and officially has some 3.5m readers, as of March 2010.
Metro Ireland is similar in layout and content to its British counterpart, as Associated Metro provides content, and the Dublin Metro uses the Associated Metro logo, not the Metro International graphics. Metro Ireland's ownership (i.e. Fortunegreen Ltd) is broken down as follows: 45% Associated Newspapers
(publishers of the Irish Daily Mail
), 45% The Irish Times
and 10% Metro International
(owners of the rights to the Metro brand in Ireland). It has one competitor Herald AM
published by Independent News and Media's Evening Herald
.
Metro Ireland was launched on 10 October 2005, as was Herald AM. Both titles have since made losses, despite a circulation of 145,000 between them in the greater Dublin area. The two titles are likely to merge, a deal certain to face scrutiny by the Competition Authority
as the resulting match up would draw together IN&M (publishers of the Irish Independent
) and The Irish Times
(the two Dublin-based broadsheets). On Thursday 2 July 2009, it was announced that the two freesheets were to merge.
Free daily newspaper
Free daily newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, or with other newspapers. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising.-In the U.S.:...
in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd (part of Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust plc is a British media conglomerate, one of the largest in Europe. In the UK, it has interests in national and regional newspapers, television and radio. The company has extensive activities based outside the UK, through Northcliffe Media, DMG Radio Australia, DMG World...
). It is available from Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays) each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.
History
The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres. Localised editions are produced for Bath, BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
, Derby
Derby
Derby , is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands region of England. It lies upon the banks of the River Derwent and is located in the south of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. In the 2001 census, the population of the city was 233,700, whilst that of the Derby Urban Area was 229,407...
, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
and Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
. It is part of the same media group as the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
and The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
, although in some areas, the paper operates as a franchise
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
with a local newspaper publisher, rather than as a wholly owned concern.
The Metro concept comes from Sweden. Metro International
Metro International
Metro International is a Swedish media company based in Luxembourg that publishes the Metro newspapers. Metro International's advertising sales have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 41% since launch of the first newspaper edition in 1995. It is a freesheet, meaning that distribution is...
, a different company, launched in the UK in 1999 and in Newcastle upon Tyne was distributed side by side with the Associated Newspapers' version on the Tyne and Wear Metro
Tyne and Wear Metro
The Tyne and Wear Metro, also known as the Metro, is a light rail system in North East England, serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Sunderland. It opened in 1980 and in 2007–2008 provided 40 million public journeys on its network of nearly...
system. After battling alongside the Associated Newspapers' version with the same name, it changed its name to Morning News. It was short-lived, however, and Morning News was discontinued shortly afterwards (see Metro International). They have had plans to launch a rivalling free evening newspaper in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Similarly, Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
is said to have regretted missing the opportunity of launching his own London paper. However, News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
, a UK subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, launched a London-based newspaper in 2006 called thelondonpaper
Thelondonpaper
The London Paper was a free daily newspaper, published by NI Free Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International...
. This was closed on 18 September 2009.
Content
The newspaper was designed to be read in 20 minutes. The features section contains a mix of articles on travel, homes, style, health and so on, as well as extensive arts coverage and entertainment listings. The puzzles page contains the cartoon strip NemiNemi (comic strip)
Nemi is a Norwegian comic strip, written and drawn by Lise Myhre. It made its first appearance in 1997 under the title Den svarte siden...
(by Lise Myhre
Lise Myhre
Lise Myhre is a Norwegian cartoonist. Her most famous cartoon is Nemi.After a short study of graphical design at the Santa Monica College of Art in California, Lise Myhre started her career as an artist, earning money illustrating CD covers and t-shirts...
), 118 118 (by Clive Collins) (advertisement comic strip) and This Life
Rick Brookes
Rick Brookes is a satirical cartoonist born in Bangor, Wales, on June 16, 1948. Having studied art at the Manchester School of Art of the Manchester Metropolitan University, he worked first as an assistant art editor for Mirabelle magazine and then as a graphic artist and designer for IPC...
(by Rick Brookes
Rick Brookes
Rick Brookes is a satirical cartoonist born in Bangor, Wales, on June 16, 1948. Having studied art at the Manchester School of Art of the Manchester Metropolitan University, he worked first as an assistant art editor for Mirabelle magazine and then as a graphic artist and designer for IPC...
), astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
readings by Nikki Harper, and Sudoku
Sudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...
. Previously, it featured a crossword
Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer...
(in place of the sudoku puzzle), David J. Bodycombe
David J. Bodycombe
David J. Bodycombe is a puzzle author and games consultant. He is based in London, and his work is read by over 2 million people a day in the UK, and is syndicated to over 300 newspapers internationally...
's Think Tank brainteasers and a Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
strip.
On 8 July 2009, the online version of Metro was merged with London Lite.
In 2005, Metro launched a science page called MetroCosm. This is written, illustrated and edited by Ben Gilliland and has received acclaim from scientists and the public alike for its accessibility, accuracy and its fearless approach to complex subjects.
In 2010, Ben Gilliland was nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award for Best Space Reporting and again in 2011 for the Arthur Clarke award for Achievement in Space Media. There is an online version (run by Ben Gilliland) called CosmOnline.
With the announcement of the UK General Election, Metro's ownership by Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust plc is a British media conglomerate, one of the largest in Europe. In the UK, it has interests in national and regional newspapers, television and radio. The company has extensive activities based outside the UK, through Northcliffe Media, DMG Radio Australia, DMG World...
has seen it following the lead given by the paid-for Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
in taking an openly pro-conservative line. This has seen it publishing a series of front page articles and headlines supportive of the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and critical of both the previous Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
Government and the Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
.
Distribution
In its first five years, it achieved a readership of over 1 million daily readers, making it the UK's fourth largest daily newspaper, after The SunThe Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. In October 2008, its total certified distribution for that month was 1,361,306. It now prints approximately 1.3m copies daily, and officially has some 3.5m readers, as of March 2010.
Metro Ireland
The Dublin freesheetFree daily newspaper
Free daily newspapers are distributed free of charge, either in central places in cities and towns, or with other newspapers. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising.-In the U.S.:...
Metro Ireland is similar in layout and content to its British counterpart, as Associated Metro provides content, and the Dublin Metro uses the Associated Metro logo, not the Metro International graphics. Metro Ireland's ownership (i.e. Fortunegreen Ltd) is broken down as follows: 45% Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...
(publishers of the Irish Daily Mail
Irish Daily Mail
The Irish Daily Mail is a newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by Associated Newspapers. The paper was launched in February 2006 with a launch strategy that included giving away free copies on the first day of circulation and low pricing subsequently....
), 45% The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
and 10% Metro International
Metro International
Metro International is a Swedish media company based in Luxembourg that publishes the Metro newspapers. Metro International's advertising sales have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 41% since launch of the first newspaper edition in 1995. It is a freesheet, meaning that distribution is...
(owners of the rights to the Metro brand in Ireland). It has one competitor Herald AM
Herald AM
Herald am is a free daily newspaper distributed at train stations, bus stops, LUAS stations, traffic junctions and high density footpaths in Dublin. Herald am is one of two free newspapers distributed to commuters in Dublin from Monday to Friday...
published by Independent News and Media's Evening Herald
Evening Herald
The Evening Herald is a mid-market tabloid evening newspaper published in Dublin, Ireland by Independent News & Media. It is published Monday-Saturday, and has three editions — City Edition, City Final Edition and National Edition...
.
Metro Ireland was launched on 10 October 2005, as was Herald AM. Both titles have since made losses, despite a circulation of 145,000 between them in the greater Dublin area. The two titles are likely to merge, a deal certain to face scrutiny by the Competition Authority
Competition Authority (Ireland)
The Competition Authority is the statutory body responsible for regulating competition in the Republic of Ireland. The authority was established under the Section 10 of the to assume the functions of the defunct Fair Trade Commission. The changed the authority from an office of the Department of...
as the resulting match up would draw together IN&M (publishers of the Irish Independent
Irish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...
) and The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
(the two Dublin-based broadsheets). On Thursday 2 July 2009, it was announced that the two freesheets were to merge.
External links
- Metro News Online version of Associated Newspapers' Metro newspaper
- Metro.mobi Mobile version of Associated Newspapers' Metro newspaper
- Hot off the Press, Steve Auckland, Metro MD discusses setting up the newspaper
- e-Metro Digital version of Associated Newspapers' Metro newspaper
- Metro Ireland
- e-Metro Ireland Digital version of Metro Ireland
- CosmOnline Online version of Metro's popular science column by Ben Gilliland (not owned by Metro)