The advertiser-funded business model that was meant to pay for the 500,000 daily copies, however, failed to deliver in the face of the recession. Yesterday News International, the newspaper’s publisher and the British parent company of The Times, announced plans to shut the title, which had been running up losses almost as great as the revenues generated from advertising. Its closure leaves the capital’s evening field to London Lite, the freesheet owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust, and to Alexander Lebedev’s Evening Standard. Both titles are estimated to be losing more than £10 million a year. James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, said that despite an innovative design and a fresh approach, thelondonpaper did not have a long-term future because “performance of the business in a difficult free evening newspaper sector has fallen short of expectations”. More ...