A nutty idea? Not necessarily. GateHouse Media has begun a summer-only, Tuesday-through-Saturday freebie called the Cape Cod Day.
More: Walter Brooks of Cape Cod Today analyzes the competition between the Day and Rupert Murdoch’s Cape Cod Times.
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So far the only freebie dailies I've seen that last rely on a base of transit riders. The Cape doesn't have any of this, so the Day will have to appeal to coffee shop customers, motel readers, and bored beachgoers. I think it can work – Cape vacationers don't have any loyalty or subscription to the Cape Cod Times. If they can't get on wifi, this will tell them the headlines and what to do if it rains, and they don't have to plop down a buck.
The Portsmouth Herald has done this on the New Hampshire coast with something called the Beachcomber, and it's worked very well from what I understand.