Maybe. But the publishers and editors of Público, which hit the newsstands last month, are convinced they can defy the ravages of new technology and free papers.

Público, a small, full-color daily that costs 0.50 euro, hopes to turn what its editors view as the enduring failings of the Spanish newspaper market to its advantage: there is little in the way of a popular press, and nothing directed at young, left-leaning readers.

With a bold front that features a single headline and a cover price half that of its rivals, Público said it hoped to draw readers aged 25 to 45, said Ignacio Escolar, the newspaper’s editor.

“The Spanish newspaper market has been a failure over the past century,” Mr. Escolar, 31, said during a visit to the modern offices that house the newspaper’s 120 editorial workers, most in their 30s.

After the transition to democracy that followed the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, he said, “we set up a press that was highly politicized.”

The paper, which has been printing 250,000 copies daily since it was introduced on Sept. 26, has no editorials, no coverage of bullfights, no death notices and no advertisements for prostitutes, all staples of mainstream Spanish newspapers. At 64 pages, it is slimmer than its rivals, which often run a hefty 90 pages.

On the surface, readership figures support Público’s view that there is a gap in the market and suggest that the Spanish newspaper industry is not caught in the fast decline of many markets in Europe and the United States.

Newspaper sales have fallen much more slowly in Spain than elsewhere in Europe, where they have been hit hard by the explosion of the Internet and mobile communications, and by competition from free papers.

Spain, which has enjoyed a decade-long economic boom and has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in Europe, was one of the few European countries where newspaper sales rose from 1996 to 2005. Sales have fallen about 2 percent over the past two years, according to the Association of Spanish Newspaper Editors. Broadband penetration, while growing fast, is still low in Spain at 15 of every 100 households, about half that of leaders like Denmark and the Netherlands.

Free papers, rather than stealing market share in Spain, have been converting nonreaders into readers, filling a gap left by the lack of Spanish tabloids. Circulation of free papers has shot from one million to about five million in the last five years, according to the World Association of Newspapers.

This is partly because newspaper readership in Spain — a country of conversationalists who crowd sidewalk cafes and village squares — is among the lowest in Europe. The country’s three main national newspapers, El País, ABC and El Mundo, do not sell a million copies among them.

Figures from the World Association of Newspapers show that about four million newspapers were sold each day last year in Spain, which has a population of about 40 million, compared with nearly double that number in France, where the population is about 60 million. Público hopes to attract the population served by the free papers.

“Freesheets have encouraged a lot of people to read every day, and we believe they are potential buyers of a second paper,” said Jaume Roures, one of Público’s main backers and an executive of Mediapro, a powerful media company based in Barcelona. Mr. Roures said that Público aimed to break even in five years, but declined to say how much had been invested in the paper so far.

Público is also pitched against El País, the best-selling liberal daily in Spain. It will fuel the rivalry between Mediapro, where Público’s three main backers are executives, and Grupo Prisa, the biggest Spanish media company and owner of El País. Mediapro and Prisa are locked in a bitter dispute over rights to broadcast Spanish soccer, and each has accused the other of receiving special treatment from allies in the ruling Socialist Party.

El País, a sober, entrenched newspaper, sells about 430,000 copies a day but lost about 5 percent of its sales last year. It introduced a revamped issue on Sunday intended to appeal more to younger readers.

Juan Luis Cebrián, chief executive of Grupo Prisa, said ahead of the reintroduction that the paper aimed to become an internationally read Spanish-language title, integrate its Web and print editions and have a “less establishment, more colorful” look.

“El País was the newspaper of the transition, and young readers feel the transition is over and want something that reflects modern reality,” Mr. Cebrián said by telephone.