Eight years ago, in what was a seminal media brouhaha, and set in the oddest of places, the train platforms of Philadelphia's transit system, a Swedish publishing company scooped up the exclusive rights to distribute a new daily it was launching, a free one called Metro.

Barred from those very platforms were such media giants as The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Even the two the major Philadelphia dailies were locked out, forced to sell their papers on the streets outside.

Thus began what was looking to be the first real American newspaper war in decades as a slew of free dailies arose to challenge the very existence of major metros across the country. It could not have come at a worse time either, as those papers were seeing their longtime market dominance eroded by declining readership and shrinking advertising revenues.

But now, all these years later, the paper that set it all off is itself on the endangered list, and considerably higher up that on list.

The U.S. Metro publications just might not survive. They are losing money, and conditions have only worsened with the ad slowdown. If a buyer is not found, or huge amounts of capital pumped in, they may well be closed.

“They have a huge problem,” observes Henry E. Scott, a former publisher of Metro New York and now managing director of Gansevoort Media, a media consultancy. "They need significant investment and extremely good management, and I don't think they have that now."

Henrik Schultz, head of media analysis at Icelandic investment bank Kaupthing, agrees the chain is in trouble. “The performance of the U.S. business is clearly untenable.”

Despite cost-cutting over recent months, the U.S. operation is expected to lose money again this year. The parent is also in the red, and Schultz says investors are losing patience.

It would be a nasty fall indeed for a company that began just 13 years ago and now distributes free papers in 150 cities around the world, including Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

After Philadelphia in 2000, Metro launched in Boston the following year and then New York in 2004.

Since then, while each of the papers is believed to have spent some time in the black, they've suffered with other papers in the weaker economy, last year losing $12 million between them. The company isn't expected to make a profit this year either.

Of the three papers, the New York Metro appears the strongest, with a 21 percent growth in revenue last year.

The paper was helped by a round of company-wide cuts earlier this year, says Georg Tsaros, managing director of Metro in New York, and he believes the New York operations might even swing into profit in September. Says Tsaros: "We are on the right track for turning the ship around."

But whether that would be enough to save the U.S. operation would appear doubtful.

“Metro wanted to sell the U.S. titles for more than a year now. Either in full or just a part,” says Piet Bakker, professor of cross media content at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Hogeschool Utrecht in Holland. “Apparently they cannot find a buyer.”

Without a sale, closure is a real possibility, one raised by Per Mikael Jensen, president and CEO of the Metro International, in a September interview.

“They either need to plough money in or close them,” says Scott of Gansevoort Media.

And Scott also notes that Metro's troubles are unique to that company and do not reflect on the number of free papers around the country that are faring decently, if not thriving in this down ad economy.

They've found their place with readers, or like the Examiner chain they’ve hunkered in for the long haul, committed to weathering the downturn as they build a stronger presence in their markets.

Scott sees hope for the Metro papers as well.

“There is potential for them to do well if they sort this out,” says Scott. “It’s not a matter of the concept not working in the U.S., but it is a matter of the execution."

Tsaros also believes there's still promise. He thinks there are some 10 cities in the U.S. where the Metro model could be applied. “We keep our doors open,” he says.