What is wrong with City A.M.?

An introduction to the newspaper in their own words -

‘City A.M. is London’s first free daily business newspaper - covering news on the markets, global and local business news as well as contemporary lifestyle features. City A.M. is read by over 100,000 professionals throughout The City, Canary Wharf and other areas of high business concentration.’

While it seems to be a good idea to have started such a publication yet it doesn’t seem to have taken off. What makes it obvious is the fact that nobody opts for it even when there are City A.M. promoters handing it out at strategic locations like Canary Wharf station. You would expect most people coming in and going out of Canary Wharf to be more interested in business newspaper but you see most of them bend their backs and pick up a Metro instead. While the advertisers are supporting City A.M. right now, I don’t foresee a long term growth for it. A lot of unread newspapers from the previous day are lying on the stands every morning as there are no takers.

Now one reason can be before people get into the rut of work stress, they prefer reading Metro which is probably a welcome change and offers a quick round up of the general news and entertainment. But a bit of thinking makes you feel that there are other reasons.

FT is the preferred financial daily and is respected a lot more. City A.M. is trying to woo the same target audience with its content. There is no significant differentiation from FT except the format. In fact, City A.M. has lot lesser to offer. So even if it is free, it has not been patronized by people unlike Metro.

I wrote an email to City A.M. a few days ago saying that their newspaper is very newsy and a business daily cannot afford to be news lead publication only. It has to have analysis to get credibility and bang in the next few days they added editorial in the inside pages. I was happy to see how fast they adapted but again it will not help. Well I could not predict it coming myself but the truth is that you cannot expect an average person travelling by tube to get to work to read serious business news analysis on his way. It’s just too much to expect from him.

So where did City A.M. go wrong?

Firstly they did not research the market well to be able to foresee such situations. An in depth study would have thrown up the fact that nobody has the time to read serious business newspapers while commuting to work except those few who would rather read FT than City A.M.

It is not that there can be no competition to FT. But you cannot compete with a well entrenched and serious player like FT with a similar positioning until and unless you invest heavily in buying consumer mind space which may not be possible for City A.M.

The answer lies in positioning the paper differently. They need to create a new and differentiated personality for City A.M. Do things not explored by FT or any business magazine yet. Increase interactivity with the readers. Look at lighter side of this profession or just whatever that works to change long term fortune for this publication.

But I do want to sincerely wish them good luck.