After London Lite managed a three-day headstart on its rival, thelondonpaper needs to make an impact when it emerges after 4pm.
It is believed to be kicking off with its full 400,000 print run, in contrast to London Lite, which pre-empted its own launch last Wednesday by publishing a reduced number of copies on the two previous working days.
With some media buyers wondering whether London Lite has a sufficiently new and young identity, having been created out of former freesheet Standard Lite, thelondonpaper could be poised to profit from its fresher design and editorial approach.
Its positioning has been trailed by editor Stefano Hatfield as an upbeat read celebrating London. Hatfield has been working on the project for a year and has assembled a team of around 40 journalists.
Associated is bracing itself for damage to the circulation of the Evening Standard, which is already down 7.73% year on year to a six-month average of 320,839.
However, the real battle is to get the most copies of the free papers into people's hands and bring in the advertisers' money.
Poster ads for News International's creation, heavily featuring the colour purple, have prepared Londoners for its arrival, but today the key contest is between the rival teams distributing the freesheets to the desirable young working demographic as they leave work for lunch, for drinks and for home.
Beyond today's excitement, the battle is predicted to be a long one and will be subject to a number of twists including who wins the London Underground and rail afternoon paper distribution contracts this autumn.
There is even speculation that The Sun could launch an afternoon edition and that thelondonpaper could come out at weekends, according to a diary item in one Sunday newspaper on the ambitions of News International's News Group Newspapers managing director Mike Anderson, formerly managing director of the Evening Standard.
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