A spot of "Lite" reading (London Lite)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	London Lite
Date:	12/03/09 (338 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: gossip, news, pictures

Disadvantages: None

Back in the day, The Metro used to be the only free paper around for commuters into London until about 2 years ago (August 2006) when the London Lite was born. This has now become my favourite commuter paper. The London Lite is the sister paper of The Metro, both owned by Associated Newspapers, the same media group that owns the Daily Mail.

The London Lite is an afternoon/evening free paper that most people get on their commute home. Like the Metro it can be found outside most tube stations and high commuter areas in London. It is printed from Monday to Friday.

What I like about the London Lite is that it is a bit more geared towards life in London than the Metro is, which is also available in localised cities across the UK. As it is an afternoon paper it generally reports on that days news as well as things that have happened the night before. It does have some international news but it is definitely more focused on London news, who did what in London last night, what celebrities went where, etc, etc. According to an article I read, the London Lite is actually designed to be especially attractive to younger female readers and features a wide range of lifestyle articles but less news and business news than other papers. This would probably be why I really like this paper, I'm bang in their target audience, and my husband is not fussed with it. The middle section of the paper is a full page, colour spread with photos of celebs the night before, talking about the parties/restaurants they went to and what they were wearing. I do quite like this portion of the paper for a bit of "lite" reading.

The inside page features a cartoon from Gary Larson and the Far Side which is generally quite funny. Then there is a London message board where people's letters about a topical subject are posted. Then, they have a small column, and this is my favourite part of the whole paper, entitled "Get it off your text," where people text in a short sentence asking a funny question or responding to someone's text from the day before. For example, someone may text in and ask about ways in which he should propose to his girlfriend. Then the next day there will be quite a lot of text responses. Sometime the texts are really funny and I find myself laughing out loud at them.

What I also like about this paper is that they have lots of little columns which run every day focusing on different things. For example, one of them is entitle, "Timew@ster, what to browse when the boss isn't looking," which gives examples of different web pages. They have a paper dedicated to what is going on in London that night in music, comedy, theatre and clubs which is also quite informing and they have a really good London restaurant review section too.

They also feature columns from guest writers than differ each day. All the columns are quite witty, although some weeks they are better than other. On Tuesday they have a section called, "Playing the Field," which features two singletons who share their search for love. Being a woman I really enjoy this section and it's nice to read about their exploits each week. They also set two single people up on a date and then they write about it afterwards in the paper.

Like all the other papers the London Lite has horoscopes, that evenings tv guide, puzzles and then the back pages are for sport with a little titbit each team about the football teams in London which is nice to read as my team, Luton Town are featured.

A fun paper to pass away the commuting minutes!

Summary: The London Lite