It tried to compete with free newspapers for three years, but London’s 182-year-old Evening Standard gave up yesterday and said that it would become a freesheet in a week’s time.

The decision comes eight months after the struggling newspaper was bought by Alexander Lebedev, the Russian oligarch.

Andrew Mullins, the managing director of the title, said: “Paid-for newspapers in London are massively challenged because the free titles dragged everybody down. As a result, Londoners have just got used to newspapers being convenient, and probably to being free.”

Five years ago the Standard sold 450,000 copies a day, but it was damaged by the arrival of two competing freesheets — the London Lite, and thelondonpaper, which was owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times. Both freesheets hit sales so hard that last month the newspaper sold an average of 116,192 copies a day.

However, thelondonpaper closed last month in an apparent admission that freesheets could not succeed. The London Lite, owned by the Standard’s former owner, Daily Mail and General Trust, is also “under review”, triggering speculation that it will also close or merge with the Standard.

The title, which is losing £15 million a year, plans to expand into the gap left by the thelondonpaper, producing 600,000 copies a day. Its aim is to saturate London’s inner zone with distributors and place copies in the lobbies of banks and other corporate offices to try to reach affluent readers that are desirable to advertisers. It hopes to increase its estimated £25 million in revenue from advertising by 40 per cent.

Mr Lebedev said that there would not be any job losses for journalists and that other daily newspapers would be forced to follow suit.

Mike Anderson, a former managing director of the newspaper, who is now an independent consultant, said: “The real opportunity would be if they tried to distribute the paper in the morning, competing with the national newspapers, or on a Saturday.”

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