London's three-year newspaper war resulted in News International's surrender on August 20, when it announced it would close thelondonpaper at the end of September. Speculation suggested the Standard could simply wait for Associated to fold the London Lite and paying customers would return to the 182-year-old paper.

However, by boosting its print run to 600,000 copies -- thelondonpaper distributed 500,000, the London Lite 400,000 -- and going free from next Monday, Alexander Lebedev's Standard has instead adopted the tactics of its tormentors and is gunning for the ad revenues of its paid-for national brethren.

Getting 600,000 copies of the Standard on to the streets where there were once 250,000 or fewer will make the evening paper "unavoidable on a buyer's schedule", said Andrew Mullins, The Standard's managing director.

More ...