Will a single Standard finally reach its audience?

The fact the Evening Standard is scrapping its early edition and sticking with a single "West End Final" edition is good news for its sleep-deprived journalists (in the old days they had to file copy by about 7.30am to make the deadline for the first edition).

But might it also be good news for its target audience?

When it announced it was going free, the Standard said it was upping its circulation to cope with an expected increase in demand. So now it's giving away 600,000 free copies instead of selling 250,000 copies at 50p, as it used to.

But as a Londoner who works in the City - not exactly out in the sticks - I've been amazed at how difficult it's been for me to actually get a copy of the paper once I leave the office.

The Standard's distributors start handing out copies from about 4pm. They are pretty much gone by 6pm. In the last two weeks I've noticed that every time I've walked home past Bank tube station (between 6pm and 7pm), there's nobody handing out papers. They've all finished.

So upscale Londoners - the paper's target market - aren't able to get their hands on the paper even if they wanted to. That's a pretty big own-goal and makes me wonder if the paper is reaching the audience the management - and advertisers - expect.

Maybe the single, later edition will mean more papers at peak times - and more left for people like me, commuting home after six o'clock.

Comments

[Mark]

So I'm not the only one to notice this! It's near impossible to find a copy in Hammersmith, unless you make it into WHSmith before 5.30.

In addition to this there don't seem to be any left on the tube, unlike the Lite and LP when they were around. Where are 600,000 copies going?