"If you compare the combined sales of national newspapers then and now - tabloid, mid-market, quality - and add in free newspapers, the total circulation is more or less exactly the same as it was seven years ago."
In that period, the paid-for press lost around 1.5 million weekday readers, while the nation's freesheets have garnered nearly two million from a standing start - proof, says Torpe, that print is more robust than many give it credit for, and readily adaptable to our busy lives.
"The picture I see more and more is that print is a very strong medium and it has gained strength mainly due to the appearance of free newspapers," he says. "It's an advantage being free, but just as important is that we are accessible. Free newspapers go out and find the readers, whereas the big problem with the paid-for newspapers is the reader has to find them."
Free newspapers are a very different value proposition than they were even a few years ago, and the market reflects as much. In 2002, there were 27 daily freesheets in the whole of Europe; today there are 125.
Ian Clark, general manager of News International's thelondonpaper, says: "Unequivocally, free newspapers have brought new readers into the marketplace from a generation that had either fallen out, or was falling out, of reading papers.
"Those people are most likely younger and more upmarket and exactly the readers most advertisers value, so I don't think there would be many who would argue that the introduction of free newspapers can be anything other than a great thing."
But some, of course, do disagree, such as Guardian Newspapers' marketing director Marc Sands.
"London Lite and thelondonpaper are technically newspapers, in that they are printed on paper. But I don't think they are a nursery slope to proper newspapers," he says.
Nonetheless, the unimpeded growth of the freesheet, allied with the shrinking red-top market, has led to speculation that some traditional newspaper brands might be tempted to dispense with the cover price, as the Manchester Evening News has partly done.
Jo Blake, head of press at BLM, believes: "There is a future for newspapers, but I don't think there will be the same number around in 10 years' time. Some will be free, certainly at the popular end."
However, if anyone is thinking about it, no one is admitting it yet, and City AM'sTorpe calculates it would take a paid-for newspaper two to three years to realign fully to a free model.
"It is virtually impossible, going free, to substitute circulation revenues with ad revenues any faster than that," he adds.
Freesheets might not be everyone's cup of tea, but even the sceptics have to concede one aspect of their appeal.
"What they do prove is that the printed word still has a life," says Sands. "Whether you are giving it away or selling it, if people didn't like it, they wouldn't pick it up."