The banning of newspaper kiosks on the Beijing subway system has sparked a battle for market share and ad revenue among major local metro newspapers.

Boxes used to distribute newspapers stand ready for use in the waiting area at Xidan subway station Monday after subway authorities banned the sale of all but one newspaper at city stations. [China Daily]

News groups in the capital said Monday they wanted their market share back after the "local authorities' monopoly" was created when subway bosses decided Friday to outlaw the sale of all publications on the underground - except the free Beijing Star Daily, which has close ties to the subway company.

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Authorities said the reason for the move was "safety concerns over crowds buying newspapers", but both readers and commentators questioned the decision.

Local news groups Monday urged subway management to allow rival publications to return to the underground stations, which are used by millions of commuters each day.

Some papers called for an end to the newly created monopoly for the 400,000-circulation Beijing Star Daily, a former government-run entertainment journal that is now owned by an advertising company affiliated to the Beijing Subway Operation Company.

The ban started with a government directive that arrived Friday at all Beijing-based publications that had circulation contracts with the subway company. The document ended the contracts, saying the municipal government's publicity department and traffic authorities had decided to allow the Beijing Star Daily to be sold at the stations as "the only approved subway publication".

Since 2007, the newspaper has followed the commercial model favored by free metro newspapers elsewhere in the world, offering free copies in subway stations as a service to passengers and gaining revenue solely from advertising.

The subway authority seemed to take a step back from the decision Monday, telling METRO that the Beijing Star Daily will be their priority, but insisting other publications may make their way back onto the platforms.

"It just takes more time and more rounds of negotiations," said Liu Youzhong, vice head of the Golden Ants Culture Development Company, which runs the subway company's publication business.

The company has already installed automatic kiosks in a few subway stations and will launch them when the dispute is settled, the official told METRO.

Fearing the move will cost them 50,000 newspapers a day, Beijing News and the Beijing Times, two widely circulated dailies run by State-owned news groups, launched fierce attacks Monday with full-page reports and comments that called the move a push for a "naked monopoly".

"Giving privilege to only one newspaper this is the weirdest thing we have heard," read a highlighted opinion article by Chen Zhengxing, a market expert, in Monday's Beijing Times.

"The strange move raises questions among every subway passenger and reader How can we allow the making of such a naked monopoly in Beijing?"

However, the capital's other major dailies, Beijing Morning Post and Beijing Youth Daily, which are owned by the municipal government's mouthpiece Beijing Daily and the Party Youth League respectively, remained silent on the issue Monday.

Cities including Hong Kong and Guangzhou have also banned the sale of other publications on their subways, while Shanghai still allows other news publications to be sold on platforms.

Media experts said the move should give the Beijing Star Daily an edge in attracting advertising revenue.

Advertising staffers at the Beijing Star Daily said Monday their ads rates had not increased since the new directive.

The subway company also said it had no plans to increase the print run of the newspaper.