Final outing for thelondonpaper

The evening freesheet thelondonpaper will appear on the capital's streets for the last time tomorrow.

Publisher News International (NI) announced last month that it was to close after it recorded pre-tax losses of £12.9 million in the year to June 29 2008 on a turnover of £14.1 million.

Thelondonpaper launched in September 2006 and had a circulation of 500,348 in July, but James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive Europe and Asia for News Corporation - NI's parent company - said the paper's performance had fallen short of expectations.

Mr Murdoch said NI wanted to concentrate on its main publications - The Sun, The Times, the News Of The World and The Sunday Times.

NI began thelondonpaper initially as a rival to the paid-for Evening Standard, but Associated Newspapers, the then-publishers of the Standard, responded by launching their own freesheet, the London Lite.

In the three years since, the sight of distributors handing out the two papers outside Underground and railway stations has become a familiar one to commuters in the capital.