The idea of a London Business Daily challenging the Financial Times in its heartland has been around for decades. When in charge of the Daily Express, Lord Stevens looked at the possibility and quickly rejected it. The FT was just too strong.
The market has changed. The advent of Metro has helped accustom people to the idea that free newspapers can have decent content, and endless amounts of business information is now available in electronic form for expert editing and repackaging.
The trick for David Parsley, editor of the planned paper and a former business editor of the Sunday Express, will be to ensure that he has enough quality content to satisfy a sophisticated readership.
The challenge for the man behind the venture, Lawson Muncaster, who used to be in charge of global sales at Metro International, is daunting, but not impossible. The target readership is still highly concentrated geographically and attractive to advertisers.
The greatest threat Muncaster could face would be a slimmed-down, free version of the FT designed to blow it out of the water before it can even launch. It is possible, but unlikely. The FT has always maintained its course like a stately galleon, disdainful of minnows trying to nibble at its edges.
The paper did produce a free Budget special this year, but in the past it decided against launching a Sunday edition to rival the Jeff Randall-edited Sunday Business. Given the sums of money lost by The Business in its various guises it was probably a wise decision.
But no one is immune to competition these days and Dame Marjorie Scardino at Pearson may have to think of some defensive measures.
At least there are modest signs of improvement at the FT. Monday's interims showed ad revenues up by 5%, with FT.com putting on 20% and the FT 's UK circulation 'stabilising', which probably means it's not falling as fast as it once was.
At least the FT will continue to have the support of the Pearson chief executive. Reams of nonsense have been written about Dame Marjorie planning to sell the FT. Then she's supposed to be retiring at 60 and heading off to her US home. None of these things are true. Pearson remains committed to the FT, Scardino has no plans to retire and even if she did, she has no intention of returning to the US in the near future.
She will have to pay attention to the planned London Business Daily, however modest the threat may appear at the moment.
Muncaster's Metro International credentials underline the growing importance of free newspapers in the media mix. According to a new TNS Gallup readership survey, the Swedish-owned newspaper group has increased its daily readership by 10% to 16.8m. At the very least, such numbers should alleviate some of the current gloom about newspaper circulations.
The importance of free papers is a lesson learned long ago by local and regional newspapers. They countered the threat of competition by joining in. Perhaps it's a lesson that will also have to be learned one day by some of the grander national dailies. After all, London's Evening Standard has managed to add more than 75,000 copies with its high-risk lunchtime giveaways.
As a result of all of this, maybe, just maybe, the Scottish institutions that have provided initial backing for the London Business Daily are not throwing their money away.
30 SECONDS ON ... LONDON DAILIES
- Associated Press-owned Metro has a circulation of about 500,000 in London out of a total national distribution of just over 1m. Some 51% of the readership doesn't read another daily newspaper. About 63% of Metro readers are ABC1, with 74% aged between 15 and 44.
- In 1987 Robert Maxwell launched the London Daily News. The paper shut just five months later after Associated Press revived the defunct Evening News as a spoiler at 10p.
- A free 'lite' version of the Evening Standard was launched in December 2004. Distributed through 190 Evening Standard vendors at lunchtime, it has an ABC for June of 76,831.
- The Financial Times launched its free afternoon offshoot, FTpm, in April. It has a distribution of 11,500 to corporate subscribers, including Morgan Stanley and Clifford Chance, from 4pm every weekday.