Free dailies have negligible (and wrong) impact

Scarborough has done a study of free dailies in Dallas, NY, Chicago and Boston.

The high points:

• "[W]hile they are attracting some hard-to-reach readers, including younger and minority, these are small gains that have had more to do with distribution strategies--such as giving papers away free in mass transit areas--than with the availability of alternative, free papers. The main effect has been that heavy newspaper readers simply read more, picking up the freebies in addition to their regular paid dailies."
     
  
• Free dailies are simply a way to have more "touch points with existing readers and to increase brand mind share and loyalty among the existing base."
     
  
• The minority readership impact was less pronounced in Dallas, where there is a less-developed mass transit system.
     
  
• The overall impact of free dailies, meanwhile, remains relatively insignificant, with a total circulation of about 2 million; and with much of that readership coming from existing newspaper readers, the paper raises the question of whether the freebies have been worth the investment by their publishers, a combination of independents and existing major newspaper publishers in their metros.
   
  
• In a final point, the paper raises the question of whether freebies can "directly monetize" their free daily audience from advertisers. "Existing advertisers might resist incremental pricing to reach mostly the same readers in markets like New York, Chicago, or Dallas. For some papers, this argument may be a barrier for some advertisers. In non-competitive markets, such as Dallas, the free dailies offer message frequency for advertisers for which this is attractive."