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 Free subway tabloid Metro takes its crisp, commuter-friendly design worldwide. June 2001
Which makes the success of Metro, a free daily tabloid originally distributed on commuter trains in Stockholm, Sweden, so surprising. Metro began publishing in 1995 and rose to gain the second-largest circulation in the city in just a few years. Metro International S.A., its parent company, has since launched 19 editions of Metro in 14 countries, in cities as far-fiung as Prague; Santiago, Chile; Montreal; Barcelona; Philadelphia; and Newcastle, England, contracting with local transportation authorities to allow them to distribute the paper at train stations and bus stops. According to figures released by Metro International, Metro is the fifth-most-read newspaper--and the most-read free newspaper--on the planet. What is behind this explosion? At least part of the paper's success lies in a design crafted specifically for reading ease. The look is clean and crisp, though somewhat bland, and the typeface is designed for legibility on jouncing trains. Few of the stories are longer than 200 or 300 words. But according to media designer Roger Black, chairman of design firm Danilo Black, Metro's real secret is its deft use of the money- and paper-saving tabloid format, offering concise news summaries without dumbed down copy or sensationalist headlines. "Metro came out of a combination of Sweden's unprecedented prosperity during the mid-1990s and the already present Nordic sense of equality," says Black, who was working for a rival Swedish daily, Svenska Dagbladet, when Metro made its debut. "These combined in an upscale tabloid design that conveyed a feeling of 'we're all happy, commuting together, reading the paper'--a sort of buoyant bourgeois bonhomie. And oddly enough, that translates very well to commuters in other countries and other languages." This success has frightened established daily newspapers to the core. Lawsuits have been brought by rival papers in several cities to prevent Metro from signing exclusive deals with local transportation authorities. It's not yet clear, however, whether Metro will draw readers away from other newspapers or just encourage people who normally don't read them to start. Whatever the case, Metro is bringing a new urgency to the question of how a daily newspaper can attract readers in a wired world, and offering a persuasive, if somewhat concise, answer. |
