A quick round-up of the weekend and Monday morning comment on the fate of the londonpaper:

• Malcolm Coles (24/08/09): ‘Did SEO failure contribute to thelondonpaper closure?’

“thelondonpaper is closing – with a pre-tax loss of £12.9m last financial year on £14.1m turnover. Maybe if they’d sorted out their SEO strategy, they’d have got more website visitors and sold more adverts?”

• Peter Preston (in the Observer, 23/08/09): ‘RIP thelondonpaper. So what’s the future Standard of success?’
  

“Let’s assume, then, that when James Murdoch says he’s concentrating on his ‘core’ responsibilities henceforth, he means no more fishing in Metro ponds. That phase is gone. News International has retired hurt. But what does this mean for London itself, apart from much less waste paper?”

• MediaGuardian (24/08/09): ‘Why Murdoch closed the London Paper‘

“Free newspapers funded by advertising are a volatile business model in any downturn, let alone a recession. While freesheets are unlikely to disappear altogether, in closing the London Paper the Murdochs have underlined their belief that charging for news is the way forward.”

• Stephen Glover (the Independent, 24/08/09): ‘A vicious press war with no real victors‘

“[T]he supposedly invincible media mogul has raised the white flag. He is closing thelondonpaper. In my view, of course, he should never have launched it in the first place. It was an expensive distraction that contributed little or nothing to good journalism.”

• FT.com (22/08/09): ‘Freesheet no longer viable model for papers selling news’

“News International’s decision to close its only freesheet highlights the newspaper industry’s move towards charging for content in print and online and away from the focus on ‘free’, which gave us the London Lite, Metro, thelondonpaper and City AM, the morning business paper.”

and from last week:

• paidContent:UK (20/08/09): ‘Murdoch has lost faith in free’

“[The decision] shows just how much the axis of publishing has shifted: just as proprietors are growing weary of readers enjoying their online news for free, there is not nearly the same confidence in the free print model there was three years ago and publishers are reverting to ways of maximising user revenue in all media instead of giving it away for nothing. And, more fundamentally for News International, London’s free newspaper war was just costing too much.”

• Jon Bernstein: Free is just another cover price
• thelondonpaper’s closure – tell the rivals or readers first?
• Online Journalism Scandinavia: Metro Sweden’s deal with Schibsted part of its ‘Freesheets 2.0′ strategy
• Radio 4′s Today programme on Metro’s 10th birthday
• Media Release: London Lite to publish last edition on Friday

From the Observer Media Diary: evidence of a print newspaper model that seems to be, wait for it, reducing its losses.

“City AM, London’s free financial paper, continues to confound the sceptics.

“It filed accounts for 2007 earlier this month, which revealed accumulated losses of just over £7m – but that reflects start-up costs, and sources close to the title say that, after several years of losing well over £2m, it will post a loss of just few hundred thousand pounds this year.

“Revenues are up 22 per cent and the title is on course to make money in 2009, at a time when more established titles are likely to plunge into the red.”

• Rusbridger: Guardian paywall ‘has not been ruled out’
• FT.com: GNM considers Observer’s future in digital age
• Sunday Sport founder expected to relaunch paper
• Freesheet closures: axe falls on Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror titles
• Reasons to be cheerful? Seattle paper, Roanoke Times and magazine publishers turning a profit

Free business newspaper City AM will launch in the two cities in spring next year, managing director Lawson Munchaster told an industry gathering.

Expected circulation of the title outside of London is 50,000.

• TATLER launches Russian edition
• How Do: NXTBOOK to launch digital business magazine in Manchester
• Messy Media officially launches Glitterditch – a blog about all things London
• MEN Media to launch new free business weekly
• Independent.co.uk: Free London Weekly set to launch in 2010