With the London Line a distant memory save for a few battered bins now collecting McDonalds wrappers there's still room for a real alternative to that vile sack of swine swill, The Evening Standard. Let's hope then that the about to be launched Penny can finally give us a decent publication in the vein of New York's Village Voice and San Francisco's double whammy of free weeklies.
Jemima over at journalism.co.uk has an interesting article on what's in store:
The team behind the cult London by London website launches a new community-focused magazine and website today, pitched as a Village Voice for London. Despite an increasingly competitive London news market, Paul Carr and his four-strong team are hoping that the Penny will build an audience of 24-49 year-old professionals not properly served by either the Evening Standard or Time Out.
We're big fans of LBL and The Friday Project - the already large readership and active community they represent should give the Penny the extra support and word of mouth it'll need to get off the ground successfully.
the Penny will be "relentlessly focused on London", but more edgier than the competition by building on news coverage with in-depth features and wider perspectives. Arts coverage will be an important element and sports coverage is planned further down the road.
After a one month pilot (which we hope you'll all support if only out of initial curiousity) the magazine should be available fortnightly in the racks along side Time Out. The cover price of 250 pennies should put it head to head with the weekly listings mag. Let's see if the extra competition will get the old timer to step up out of its comfortable rut.
The website is still dormant at the time of writing, but we'll keep an eye on it and let you know when it wakes up.
