Newsflash: Metro International has closed its franchise operation in Croatia, which published the free newspaper Metroexpress in Zagreb. The company's decision followed poor results over the past six months.
This surprises us. Croatia is a fast growing economy with a fast growing - young - professional class which should be perfect reader material for Metro.
So what went wrong?
Well the failure in Croatia above all is yet another example of the weakness of the FREE model. Being totally dependent on a single revenue stream as the FREEs are isnt great by any measure. Its worsened by having that single revenue stream derived entirely from (physical) advertising in this increasingly digital market. Additionally costs of print/production and the big cost associated with unique by hand distribution model weigh heavily on the balance sheet.
Credit To Metro CEO Per Mikeal Jensen who continues to rationalise and consolidate which is exactly the strategy in these challenging times. He has got the focus, energy and board support necessary to realise Metros' potential to be profitable.
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