Why RedEye Waited So Long to Go Free

By: Mark Fitzgerald I don?t want to say I told you so, but last Dec. 9 in this space, I wrote: "One day, and perhaps soon, I'll be able to get a RedEye for free, too. I'll probably have to drive the minivan a lot further, though, because you can bet that my neighborhood White Hen will be well outside the controlled-circulation target area."

Tribune Co. had just announced that it was moving the Chicago and Los Angeles editions of its Spanish-language daily Hoy from paid to free, and I argued that RedEye would soon go that route, too. Among other things, I noted, in the hip neighborhoods, RedEye was already free, though settled and stolid, solid citizens such as myself had to pay for it.

Well, I was half right. On Monday, the Chicago Tribune formally converted its youth-oriented daily RedEye to free distribution -- but the tabloid was available in a newsbox a block from my single-family detached Georgian house in the distinctly uncool Norwood Park neighborhood where I live amongst Chicago cops, firefighters, and folks with, um, less defined jobs with the city.

You didn?t have to be a newspaper Nostradamus to figure that RedEye would inevitably drop its cover price of a quarter.

It?s no news flash that 18- to 34-year-olds don?t particularly want to pay for news, and the kids who are turning 18 every day absolutely will not pay for content. Then, too, there was the fact that practically nobody in the neighborhoods RedEye was targeting was paying for the paper anyway. Of the 95,000 copies distributed daily, only about 10% were actually paid for, RedEye?s general manager, Brad Moore, said in an interview Monday.

Moore was named to the position only last week, but in one way it?s a return engagement. He was RedEye?s business manager when the tab was launched in October 2002, and well remembers the running arguments about whether the paper should be paid or free.

Though a 25-cent price was slapped on the cover, the paper wasn?t sure it would ever be a true paid product.

?We didn?t know exactly, which was the beauty of the hybrid (paid/free) model,? Moore said. ?We could do both ... knowing we?d be evaluating what ultimately would be the distribution model.?

Giving so many copies away quickly raised awareness of the product in its target demographic, and ?free is certainly the most convenient way to reach readers.?

That part worked, according to Moore. The paper?s demographics are on target, with ?nearly half? of its readers aged 18 to 34, he says.

But having a cover price had its own advantages, even if it wasn?t drawing many quarters out of low-riding jeans.

For one thing, Moore notes, it immediately got the non-traditional RedEye into stores using newspapers? traditional appeal to retailers: a cut of the quarter.

?That got us exposure in places like Starbucks that has typically not allowed free publications,? he said.

RedEye has proven remarkably successful in convincing retailers to keep stocking it as a free paper. Starting Monday, it was available free at 126 Starbucks locations, and it is staying in the convenience stores where it once sold, such as White Hen.

Moore, not surprisingly, attributes that success to retailers growing to see the value of RedEye, as well the long relationship they have with the Chicago Tribune. But it was also following a path blazed by Hoy, and -- more relevant to RedEye?s target market -- by the Chicago Reader, the free-distribution alternative weekly that?s long been the city?s youth-targeting heavyweight. With traditional drop locations such as Barnes & Noble increasingly restricting access to free papers, the Reader worked to expand its distribution into convenience stores.

Meanwhile, across town at the Chicago Sun-Times, there's also a certain satisfaction about their own youth daily strategy.

When word leaked of RedEye's impending launch back in the fall of 2002, the Sun-Times worked furiously to create its own tab. The result was Red Streak, a name that by happy coincidence the Sun-Times used on a long-ago discontinued afternoon edition, but that had the principal benefit of confusing readers and dampening the initial impact of RedEye. Red Streak also quickly went to free distribution.

"Our goal was to keep TribCorp from getting a foothold in the paid tabloid market in Chicago," Sun-Times Publisher John Cruickshank said in an e-mail Tuesday. "We've accomplished that."

The dynamics of the Reds competition has changed, he added, "and it's too early to say how we will respond to their latest tactical shift."

RedEye's Moore said its readership studies show that the initial confusion in the market has faded away, especially as the Sun-Times significantly reduced the Red Streak press run. RedEye figures that its rival is printing perhaps 2,000 or so copies.

"We print several times more than a couple of thousands of Red Streak," Cruickshank responded in his e-mail.

RedEye didn?t make much of a splash about the conversion from paid in its first free issue Monday. There was a very short editor?s note, and you have to search the front page to the very bottom to see the tiny red word ?free.?

But the paper has a little fun with itself in its distinctive newsboxes that are topped with a big red sphere suggestive of an eyeball. The coin slot is now covered with a three-line message that can be read at least two ways: ?You know/you want it/FREE.?

Though RedEye is cranking up the presses to distribute 105,000 copies, 15,000 more than before, its distribution area will remain essentially the same, Moore said.

So this Baby Boomer on the wrong side of its target demo can now walk over to the newsbox on Milwaukee Avenue and pick up a free RedEye as if it were yet another benefit of the AARP membership for which, as I am frequently reminded by the senior citizens association, I am eligible.

CORRECTION: A correction was made to this article Oct.5. Brian Moore was business manager at the time RedEye was launched, not its general manager.