Germany: Newspaper introduces free weekly to find new readers
German regional daily newspaper Sächsische Zeitung (SZ) has introduced a free weekly paper called freitagSZ in the east German city of Dresden some weeks ago. The name comes from the German word Freitag (= Friday), because the paper appears every Friday. It is distributed to all households that do not subscribe to the Sächsische Zeitung. The paper can therefore offer its advertisers the possibility to reach the whole population of the city. FreitagSZ is also an attempt to find new readers for the main paper, advertising the main paper and pointing to stories that will appear in the Sächsische Zeitung in the following days.
Regarding the design, the free freitagSZ is very similar to the paid main paper: The use of colors and fonts is almost the same, the format is identical. Of course, the free paper devotes more space to advertising. The content, however, is different: The free weekly reports only about Dresden related topics and not about national or international news. And as it appears only once a week, the paper reports only the most important local stories. The free paper is divided into three sections, one focusing on Dresden in general, one on stories from the different quarters and the third on the local housing market and real estate classifieds. The launch of the free paper is a courageous move. It will be exciting to watch if the free paper can increase readership for the main paper or if it will instead lead subscribers, who read the Sächsische Zeitung mainly for its local news, to switch to the free version.
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![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorsweblog.org%2F2005%2F11%2Fgermany_newspaper_introduces_f.php&bodytext=<p><img title="Similar design: The free weekly freitagSZ and the paid daily Sächsische Zeitung" height="179" alt="Similar design: The free weekly freitagSZ and the paid daily Sächsische Zeitung" hspace="2" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers/images/freitagsz2.jpg" width="141" align="left" vspace="2" border="0" />German regional daily newspaper <em>Sächsische Zeitung (SZ)</em> has introduced a free weekly paper called <em>freitagSZ</em> in the east German city of Dresden some weeks ago. The name comes from the German word Freitag (= Friday), because the paper appears every Friday. It is distributed to all households that do not subscribe to the <em>Sächsische Zeitung</em>. The paper can therefore offer its advertisers the possibility to reach the whole population of the city. <em>FreitagSZ</em> is also an attempt to find new readers for the main paper, advertising the main paper and pointing to stories that will appear in the <em>Sächsische Zeitung</em> in the following days. </p>&title=Germany: Newspaper introduces free weekly to find new readers){kind=link}
The Poynter Institute is in St. Petersburg, FL, not Tampa.
I am sorry. My mistake; I guess I confused both places. Thank you for the correction!
Zebunnisa