LIGHT, BRIGHT AND FREE.

This article focuses on Dose, a free daily magazine in Canada. Dose, set to launch in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa on April 4, will consist of a daily newsprint magazine, a wireless media portal and a website produced for and by 18-to-34-year-old urbanites. In the last decade, free dailies, initially designed for public-transit commuters with nothing else to pass the time, have been popping up in cities all over the world. Inside the office, fresh-faced editors and writers sit at an enormous wooden desk, churning out original features and repackaging wire copy about entertainment, sports, popular culture and news. The commuter-daily trend, which originated in Sweden in 1995 with Metro, appears to be just heating up in Canada. Dose promises to be more aggressively youth-focused by providing content on multiple platforms. Its website, for example, will feature breaking news, a local search tool and a music channel; its wireless portal will provide instant access to movie listings, games and ring tones. The slow erosion of youth readership is a growing problem for traditional dailies. According to the Newspaper Audience Databank, only 45 per cent of 18- to 34-year-old Canadians currently read a newspaper every day, compared to 63 per cent in 1986. The real problem is a generational shift in how people consume information.