The Age last week rebranded its Friday sports section as The Form. As I have blogged here previously, The Form could be the start of a new free newspaper offering from Fairfax. While it is included in The Age in Melbourne, In Sydney it is a separate free publication with the Sydney Morning Herald and presents distribution challenges for newsagents.
Victorian newsagents ought to talk with their NSW colleagues to understand more the impact of the launch of The Form as separate from the newspaper.
If the age is including the form as part of the newspaper then thats great, it does push sales, however in NSW because it is seperate newsagents eith have to put it into each paper manually or provide valuable shelf space for it. All for 30c per week. Thats 30c for all papers not each. Delivery times are delayed because of the extra bulks. Its a nightmare as customers constantly complain that it should all be one paper. Good luck if its being included in the Age, hopefully someone has got it right.