At just £0.20, the new Independent off-shoot “i” is certainly one of the cheapest (and freshest papers out there – clearly a cut above the celeb-led distractions inside full freesheets.
But is even £0.20 the right price?
Independent Print is now giving folks the opportunity to read the paper free for a week, with these vouchers redeemable for five daily copies.
Voucher offers are nothing new, and this is a marketing offer rather than a strategic shift with the model. But it will at least allow the Lebedevs to see how a free “i” compares with a £0.20 “i”.
“i” will later offer an iPad app at the same price as the paper, The Independent’s digital MD Zach Leonard (formerly of News International), tells NMA.
“It was a critical strategic decision to have a common price across all platforms,. But this was a bit of a challenge with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) because it doesn’t have the 20p pricing band in the app store.
“So we’re bundling content into logical clusters so you can have a week’s worth. Quality journalism distributed through an app designed for iPad is absolutely worth 20p at least.”