Free London tabloid folds

       Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm plans to close its lossmaking afternoon freesheet thelondonpaper , bringing to an end a fierce threeyear battle for young commuters on the streets of the capital.
       Murdoch's son James, the head of News Corporation in Europe and Asia,said the firm planned to close the afternoon tabloid after it posted an almost ฃ13 million pretax loss for the year, following an advertising slump.
       The paper launched three years ago,covering sports, news, London events and celebrities, to compete in a fierce battle against the rival freesheet London Lite and the paid-for Evening Standard .The battle resulted in an army of young distributors jostling with each other and commuters to hand out papers on the busy capital streets, often thrusting them into the arms of Londoners as they made their way home.
       "We have taken a tough decision that reflects our priorities as a business,"James Murdoch said in a statement."The team at thelondonpaper has made great strides in a short space of time with innovative design and a fresh approach but the performance of the business in a difficult free evening newspaper sector has fallen short of expectations."
       He said the group would launch a consultation with around 60 staff and then focus on its core titles of The Times ,Sunday Times ,The Sun and News of the World .Enders media analyst Doug McCabe told Reuters even Rupert Murdoch had to make decisions based on commercial realities. The newspaper magnate who has titles all over the world has also talked recently about charging for online content.
       "Advertising-based media is having a very difficult time in this recession,some of which is due to structural change,and the decision is all part of that context," he said."So it's not surprising but he won't have taken it lightly."
       The group said the paper recorded a pretax loss of ฃ12.9 million in the year to June 29,2008.
       Thelondonpaper launched in 2006 and was handing out over 500,000 copies a day according to data for July, compared with 400,000 for the London Lite , which is owned by Associated Newspapers.
       Daily Mail & General Trust's Associated launched its London Lite at the same time as thelondonpaper in spite of also owning the Evening Standard . After a hit to sales, the Daily Mail sold the Standard earlier this year to Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev.
       McCabe said he expected Associated to at least review the London Lite following thelondonpaper decision, as it is also likely to have been hit by the advertising slump.
       The Daily Mail said they were watching the situation but would not comment any further at the moment.