By: Lucia Moses Jeremy L. Halbreich, who spent 24 years at
The Dallas Morning News before leaving to start his own newspaper chain five years ago, is putting his know-how of the market back to work. Halbreich became the latest to join the free-distribution daily craze, announcing plans to launch Nov. 12 a tabloid for busy professionals.
A.M. Journal Express would be similar to other big-city, quick-read freebies now available in New York, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia. With minority backing from two unnamed publishing and media companies,
A.M. Journal Express would start with a distribution of 140,000 to 150,000.
"Traditional daily papers, as we know them and love them, are still very viable news vehicles and economic generators," Halbreich said in an interview. "But as people's lifestyles become stratified, there are going to be niche opportunities. It's no different from radio, television and cable."
Halbreich said he began working on the idea 18 months ago after having success distributing several free weeklies owned by his company, Dallas-based American Consolidated Media LLC, which publishes 28 small papers in Texas and Oklahoma.
"We asked ourselves, 'Wonder if this would work in a larger market?'" he said.
At the time, Luxembourg-based publisher Metro International was making waves with North American editions of its free commuter papers in Boston, Philadelphia and Toronto.
Halbreich said he sees
A.M. Journal Express, with its short, easy-to-read story format, as competing for ad dollars mostly with drive-time radio, direct mail, and alternative press, not his old employer. Since the paper could vary distribution patterns daily, it could serve advertisers' promotional needs. If a store is having a sale, the paper could increase distribution around the store the day before, for example, Halbreich said.
"This product is not a direct competitive threat to the
Morning News," he said. "It's a very different style, approach to newspapering. ... We are never going to have the depth and breadth they provide."
The
Morning News has been busy with its own niche publications, having just launched a Spanish-language daily and earlier this year, an edition for fast-growing and upscale Collin County. Jim Moroney, publisher and CEO of the
Morning News, said Tuesday at a meeting with Belo investors that the paper would report a daily circulation gain for the six months ended Sept. 30 for the third consecutive Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX.
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