Will Boris reward his media pals?

If Boris Johnson becomes Conservative mayor of London, one of the future decisions facing his administration will be scrutinised with particular intensity. Less than two years into his four-year term, the contract for the exclusive distribution on the London Underground of the Metro freesheet comes up for renewal.

The decision will be taken by the boss of Transport for London - who Johnson would appoint. The Metro is the sister paper of the Evening Standard, Johnson's fiercest ally in his battle for City Hall with Labour's Ken Livingstone.

The conjunction has led the Guardian to allege "the fact that the Standard and its parent company, Associated Newspapers, have an interest in the renewal of the contract for the exclusive distribution of their Metro freesheet on the London Underground next year can can only reinforce the paper's long-established ideological hostility to Livingstone and everything he stands for."

The Guardian says this election has also been the focus of the most poisonous media onslaught for almost two decades. The relentless attacks on the mayor by London's only paid-for newspaper, the Evening Standard, which has in effect run Boris Johnson's campaign throughout, have turned election rules on their head with character assassination ads displayed on an almost daily basis on newsstands across the city.

Genuine investigations into cronyism or development grants have long since lapsed into smears, reaching a new low last week with the 'mendacious' "Suicide bomb backer runs Ken campaign" banner headline.

But just how important is the Evening Standard? In a city of 8m people and 5m voters, its daily circulation of 280,000 - only 180,000 of them paid for at the newsstands - suggests its impact will be far from decisive.

That circulation is dwarfed by the distribution of millions of freesheets across the outer London boroughs. One of them, which pushed 300,000 copies through doors in a couple of northwest London boroughs, gave Livingstone pride of place on its front page to honour his campaign against the British National Party.

There are also two freesheets which are distributed to central London commuters on their way home - London Lite owned by Associated, and the Murdoch-owned London Paper.

London Lite has been notably more restrained than its Standard stablemate and despite the fact that Murdoch's Sun came out for Johnson this week, the London Paper has been bending over backwards to be fair to Livingstone.

THE MOLE: MAYORAL ELECTION

FIRST POSTED APRIL 25, 2008