Israeli (newspaper)

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Israeli (Hebrew: ישראלי‎, lit. Israeli) was an Israeli daily Hebrew language newspaper distributed for free in railway stations, bus terminals, and Delek gas stations. Based on the concept of the Metro free daily newspapers, it was geared toward a young, urban, and mobile clientele.

The newspaper, first published in January 2006, was co-owned by Sheldon Adelson and Hirsch Media (owned by Shlomo Ben Tzvi). The company publishing Israeli is called Israeli News Ltd. Its original budget is planned to be US$35 million over three to four years. Its headquarters are located on Menahem Begin Road in Tel Aviv. It is suspected that the newspaper is losing money, but the publishers insist that increasing the amount of pages from the originally planned sixteen to twenty-four, and often even more (up to 40), is a sign that there is a strong demand from advertisers. The newspaper is aiming to be the number two paper in Israel (behind Yediot Aharonot), and claims to print 200,000 each day in two daily editions, morning and evening. Criticism of this claim has led the publishers to consider numbering each copy under supervision of an accounting firm.

In September 2006, it was reported in the Hebrew media that the newspaper will be offering a web portal based on news and blogs which will have some crossover to the print edition.[1] (Hebrew)

In 2007, Adelson withdrew from the partnership because of differences of opinion and instead pursued other competing options. Adelson made an unsuccessful bid to buy controlling interest in the Israeli newspaper Maariv. When this failed, he proceeded with parallel plans to publish a free daily newspaper. ^[1]

In January 2008, the paper was disbanded.