London gets another free magazine - In-Debate

A new free monthly magazine aimed at an upmarket readership, In-Debate, is gearing up to launch in London. The title will be handed out in the capital and could appear on the streets by the end of the month. In-Debate aims to provide readers with a concise take on key issues in the news along with a guide to what opinion-formers are saying about them. The 36-page magazine will also feature a listings guide to cultural life in London with a bias towards "highbrow" events including talks, debates and book readings. It is privately financed by Daniel da Costa, a 23-year-old marketing graduate who used to work at Intelligence Squared, a company that organises live debates. Intelligence Squared was founded by the millionaire media entrepreneur John Gordon and Jeremy O'Grady, editor-in-chief of the Week magazine. In-Debate will initially be handed out towards the end of each month at five London tube stations – Bank, Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Embankment and Westminster – and will have a print run of 10,000 copies. The plan is to increase distribution to 60,000 at 20 central London stations. Da Costa said the title will appear on 29 September if it sells enough advertising, adding that the reaction from media buying agencies has generally been positive. It is possible the launch will be delayed until the last week of October, however. It will be aimed, he added, at wealthy 25- to 40-year-olds working in and around the Square Mile: "career professionals [who] don't have time to investigate every side of the story". Most of the content will be supplied by Intelligence Squared but the magazine is being designed and produced by da Costa and two others. There are no major investors involved. Da Costa said the startup costs are small, mainly because no journalists are employed at the title. A raft of free titles have been launched in London and other major UK cities in recent years, including Sport, which appears every Friday, and the daily financial paper City AM. The former FHM editor-in-chief and IPC executive Mike Soutar founded the weekly men's lifestyle title Shortlist in 2007 and a spin-off title aimed at women, Stylist, began publishing last year. The London Evening Standard scrapped its 50p cover price last year and also went free in a bold experiment initiated by its new Russian owner Alexander Lebedev. That followed a vicious three-year circulation battle between two free evening titles distributed in the capital, News International's the London Paper and Associated Newspaper's London Lite. The former closed in September last year and London Lite stopped publishing several weeks later. The newspaper industry is currently wrestling with a number of new business models that are not yet fully established. Metro, the free morning title launched by the Daily Mail's owner, Associated Newspapers, is now available in 33 cities and remains profitable 11 years after it first appeared. Free titles are regarded as a growth area but Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, News International's owner, is pursuing the opposite strategy by constructing paywalls around its UK newspaper websites. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".