Spits free paper to disappear

Free newspaper Spits will end its publishing run in October, its parent company Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG) announced today. The company plans to merge Spits with Metro, another free Monday-Friday paper owned by the company.

The publisher plans to expand Metro into a larger paper, and increase distribution of Metro to 510,000 copies daily.

The first issue of Spits was released on June 21, 1999. The newspaper was familiar for being handed out at railway stations, as well as on regional bus lines, and inside IKEA and McDonald’s locations.

TMG purchased Metro about two years ago. Last year, the newspapers’ editor, Robert Brandwijk, said he believed there was enough room in the market for two free newspapers handed out at railway stations.