No one asked for them - a point that the small army of media observers who are jostling for the best view of the anticipated freesheet bloodbath have so far failed to observe. Dumping up to 800,000 products into a market for which there is no latent demand would appear foolhardy, and not a tactic brand owners in any other market would expect to get away with.
Media brands are different, though - a truth held to be self-evident by those who work in the industry. The normal rules - of actual customer demand, declining sales in the overall market and cannibalisation of existing brands - do not, it appears, apply to the freesheets.
Quite how this apparent disregard for the principles of customer-led strategy has been allowed to take hold is open to question. After all, newspaper brand owners have a better idea of who their readers are, and better channels through which to communicate with them, than other brand owners could hope for. Yet here we have a textbook example of a product-oriented strategy - pushing a product out and hoping to create a market for it.
None of which is to say that the freesheets, being free, won't acquire readers. There are few barriers to 'purchase', and the only downside for readers may be the overzealous advances of the battalions of distributors. The customers we should be concerned for are those that the freesheets really depend on: the advertisers.
In order for Associated's London Lite and NI's thelondonpaper to prosper, advertisers must be convinced that they will give more than they take away. Of the positives, the argument that freesheets attract readers who would not otherwise have bought a paper is the strongest. It is not, however, without its flaws.
The free morning paper Metro, also published by Associated, claims a circulation of 500,000-plus in London and more than 1m nationally. This has helped to hasten, yet at the same time offset, a decline in sales of national papers. The difficulty for the publishers of the afternoon freesheets will be to prove where their readers are being drawn from. And in the dust thrown up by the skirmish, it will be nigh-on impossible for advertisers to gain a clear view of the overall London newspaper market.
The biggest question will be how much duplication there is between the readers of Metro, London Lite and thelondonpaper. Advertisers would be wise to presume a considerable crossover until there is proof to the contrary.
And how valuable are freesheet readers to advertisers? Not very, if Associated's decision to raise the cover price of the Evening Standard by 10p is anything to go by. It is reportedly prepared to sacrifice a further 100,000 Standard readers in the freesheets battle - presumably of the less valuable variety, as it claims the price hike is aimed at attracting upmarket readers.
There is less known about the overall effect of this freesheet battle than the participation of such prestigious publishers would suggest. Their commitment to the fight is grounded in self-defence - making it a potentially expensive and bloody battle that is best observed from the sidelines.
First among equals, page 15.