Results matching “france daily ne”

Bertrand Pecquerie wrote in an article in Le Monde yesterday that the French newspaper industry is in crisis and, worryingly, turning to the State for help. Newspapers have been subsidized in France for the past ten years and, in those ten years, the situation has not improved, it has actually worsened.

Pecquerie believes that there are four core problems facing the industry and these are not being addressed. The four core issues are method, diagnosis, objective and means.

France's newspaper industry is in crises and President Nicholas Sarkozy is launching talks to look into alleviating the situation. There will be a two month industry consultation period led by a one of Sarkozy's former Elysee advisers.

However, unions are reportedly concerned Sarkozy could loosen ownership laws, allowing his television baron friends to buy into the national press. Sarkozy, is known as the "télé-président" due to his media fixation and his close relationship with key figures within the media.

The French press is one of the least profitable in Europe, the daily circulation of all French national papers is just 8 million, which is half that of the UK and one third of Germany. French newspapers' combined turnover fell from €1.145bn (£905 million) in 2000 to €848 million last year.

It also costs more to print a national newspaper in France than in most of its European neighbours due to the Union Le Livre's importance in this sector, it insists on strict working hours and conditions for its members. It is also difficult to buy a newspaper in France because Labyrinthine state controls newspaper kiosks. The press already receive €1.5bn in direct and indirect state each year

Le Monde's editor, Eric Fottorino, has called for Sarkozy to make it easier for the public to buy a copy of a newspaper.

Sarkozy reportedly favours loosening French laws to allow media organisation to own a TV station, a major radio network and a major daily newspaper.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

A new daily sports paper, 10 Sport, will be launched on November 3.  The paper will be published seven days a week and distributed throughout France.  It will be a 24-page tabloid-style format with an initial circulation of 100,000 and a staff of around twenty.

Since 1988, L'Equipe, the only daily sports paper in France has dominated the paid-for press with a higher circulation than any other paper including Le Monde and Le Figaro.  

According to Michel Moulin, co-founder of the paper, 10 Sport will be focused on football and will complement L'Equipe.  

Sources: Le Figaro

French regional daily newspaper Centre Presse announces that as it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, it is shifting to tabloid format. The paper, based in the Vienne department, will also undergo a redesign and will be smaller, lighter, more practical and more colorful, said chief editor Richard Lavigne.

According to a study released on Monday by Audipresse, a company which audits French newspaper circulations, the daily French press has seen a significant increase in readership.  

There has been a 4.4 percent surge in readership.  Readership of national dailies has risen by 7.4 percent, placing daily readership at 8,773,000.  In spite of the increase in readership, sales have seen a decline of 1.8 percent in the last year.

Free dailies have seen an increase of 12.5 percent, including Direct Soir, Direct Matin and Direct Bretagne, placing daily readership at 4,188,000.

Every newspaper saw an increase in readership: 7,4 percent for Le Figaro, 1.8 percent for Libération and Le Monde, 13.2 percent for Le Parisien, and a 10.6 percent for L'Equipe.

20 Minutes is the most read daily, placing it ahead of L'Equipe, Métro, Le Parisien and Le Monde. 

Xavier Dordor, director of Audipresse has cited one of the reasons for the increase in readership as local elections.  The elections have increased public interest, therefore augmenting the sales of national papers.  Increased sales are also attributed to the coverage of topics that most French people have been preoccupied with over the last year, such as inflation and buying power.
 
Source: CB News, Le Monde.fr

Approximately 80% of the free dailies in France will survive versus just one third of bought dailies, according to media specialist Jean-Clément Texier (Director media & telecoms at BNP-Paribas).

Dropping advertising revenue coupled with the high startup and production costs are stagnating the market for French newspapers.

Free dailies in France have been growing steadily, 20 Minutes has taken first place in distribution volume with 16% of the market, placing it in higher circulation than other dailies such as Le Figaro, Le Parisien and Le Monde.  Free dailies have been growing steadily in the French market because of the lack of loyalty to purchased dailies due to their high cost caused by governmental regulations.

Free daily papers make up 7 percent of the daily worldwide press and 23 percent in Europe. The worldwide distribution of free dailies has grown by 173% in 5 years.

Edited by Lauren Drablier

Source: BBC, New York Times,  NYTimes.com,  French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs,  Freepublic.com, Lemonde.fr

France Telecom is testing a new electronic newspaper with the French newspaper industry called Read & Go.

Seven French publications have joined France Télécom for the test, which is intended to provide a convincing facsimile of its traditional counterpart. 120 people in France are testing the device, which allows them to download the participating newspapers contents over France Télécom's wireless network.

France Télécom is not the first company to experiment with electronic "paper" versions of newspapers. The Kindle, sold by Amazon.com, already allows customers to subscribe to e-paper versions of 19 newspapers. However, Read & Go is different as it can run adverts.

If successful, France Télécom plans to introduce the product in other markets, like Britain, where the company has mobile networks.

This product is being watched closely in the French market, as there are hopes that it could aid the flagging industry. Only 42 percent of adults regularly read newspapers in France, compared with 48 percent in the United States and 73 percent in Germany, according to the World Association of Newspapers.

The seven French publications participating in Read & Go include: Le Monde, Le Figaro, Le Parisien and Libération, which is being added to the test this month; a sports daily, L'Équipe; a business newspaper, Les Échos; and a weekly entertainment and culture magazine called Télérama.

Pascal Laroche, director of digital editions at Libération, said his paper viewed the project as a supplement for its existing products.

Source: The New York Times

20 Minutes, the French free daily, will undergo a makeover this November.

The newspaper will create more space for photos and change the font. It will not reduce the editorial content. Management wants to make the newspaper more visual, spacious, and clearer. These changes at the newspaper have been in the pipeline for sometime.

The Editor-in-Chief, Johan Hufnagel, of 20Minutes.fr was fired recently due to a difference of opinion with the Editor-In-Chief of the print edition, Corinne Sorin. 20 Minutes President France, Pierre-Jean Bozo, believes there cannot be two Editors-in-Chief at the publication.  This action provoked a five-day strike at the website editing department in August. Negotiations are ongoing at the newspaper.

Source: AFP via IFRA Executive News

Prominent French daily regional newspaper Sud Ouest reports that it intends to re-launch its print edition in mid-November, focusing more on reader's needs, whether they are from Bordeaux or the nearby region, says Patrick Venries, the paper's information director.

The revamp will make Sud Ouest more "coherent", "logical", well-organized", "well-sequenced" and give it a stronger anchor to the region, says assistant editor Francis Dupuy, who will be in charge of the development at Sud Ouest starting from January 1 next year.

The tabloid format will remain the same but the logo will be squeezed into two lines to form a square on the top left in order to have a more organized frontpage. The re-designed paper will also have more content dedicated to leisure activities.

The makeover is led by the Scottish Palmer Watson, who also helped re-design the Spanish daily El Pais and the French daily Le Monde.

Source: AFP

Mobile technology seems to be gaining popularity in Flanders after the launch of the iPhone as some newspapers began to offer mobile services, reported Dorien Aerts from the Online Journalism Blog.

De Standaard's mobile site, which was launched on June 16, has news, weather forecast and updated traffic information. The paper was also the first to introduce blogging to its site.

De Tijd is finance-oriented, providing mobile users with daily news, currency information and the users own "investment wallet".     

Local papers Het Belang van Limburg and Gazet van Antwerpen have mobile sites offering both national, international, sports, cultural and society news.

Aerts pointed out that Flemish papers like Het Laatste Niews, De Morgen and Het Nieuwsblad have not yet launched mobile sites. He also mentioned that so far no Flemish papers have used mobile widgets or localization and personalization functions.

Source: Online Journalism Blog through IFRA Executive News Service

France: Le Figaro launches iPhone site
US: NYT launches iPhone application
AP launches native iPhone application
IHT.com launches iPhone-optimized site

The German market at first appearance would seem the perfect place to start up a free daily newspaper, but the market remains untapped, report Newspaper Innovations. German publishers seem determinedly anti-free dailies, overlooking the chance they represent.

Metro and Schibsted wanted to go to Germany while Dagsbrun also (Iceland) made plans. These incumbents have met with difficulty in the home market. Springer reportedly has a 'war fund' of EUR300 million ready and could launch competitor Gratissimo 'within days', and WAZ - the second largest German publisher - also wants to fight a free daily launch.

FTD cites 'informed sources' who report that it would take at least six years for a German project to break even, and that it would cost at least EUR400 million. Newspaper Innovation ask how this figure is calculated as launching costs are between EUR10 and EUR20 million in Spain, France, UK and the Netherlands.

The article even states that the actions of some players in the market could be for the attention of the Bundeskartellambt, the German anti-competition agency.

Source: Newspaper Innovation via IFRA Executive News Search
 

French daily newspaper Le Figaro announced the launch of its iPhone site, iphone.lefigaro.fr, as Apple releases its iPhone 3G, reported TarifMedia.com.

Le Figaro is following a trend that is seen across the newspaper industry, as news organizations like The New York Times and the Associated Press release their own iPhone applications.

iPhone users will have free access to Figaro.fr content such as national and international news, politics, sport, stock market, economics and culture.

New sections and services will be available on Le Figaro's iPhone site by fall 2008, according to TarifMedia.com.

Source: TarifMedia.com through IFRA Executive News Service

See also:
US: NYT launches iPhone application
AP launches native iPhone application

Back in 2001, the Guardian newspaper asked, "Where have all the women gone?", and it is a question that has plagued the editors of leading British newspapers for the past two decades as only 41% of women - 10.3 million - read a daily UK newspaper (October to March 2008).
 
Genevieve Roberts, a former features writer and reporter for The Independent, now an advertising planner for McCann Erickson on the Evening Standard account, told me: "Almost every newspaper is trying to appeal to female readers. In crude commercial terms, females are the main shoppers in more than 50% of households, and advertisers want to appeal to people who shop so they have the opportunity to buy their product."

This is the crux of the issue, advertising is now more than ever driving the bottom-line of newspapers, and it is crucial that newspapers attract the right demographic to appeal to advertising agencies and businesses.

Without female readers, the advertisers will look elsewhere.

The Glossy Magazine Approach

Newspapers are tackling this problem in two distinctly different ways: the glossy/gossip magazine approach and the female interest approach.

Daily Mirror
(From July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 43%)

Daily Mirror Editor Richard Wallace has discretely changed the focus of the newspaper from the traditional male-orientated tabloid to appeal to women who buy popular weekly gossip magazines.

Andrew Higton, a sub-editor at The Mirror, told me that this marketing approach has involved a significant change in culture for the staff. Editors, reporters and sub-editors are often told to make copy more "female-friendly". This new approach is applied at all levels, for example, when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France visited the UK, subs were told to focus much of the story on Carla Brunei's outfits.

The Daily Mirror's shift towards the glossy magazine style has also involved changing the look of the whole newspaper in an attempt to make it more visually appealing to the female market. The newspaper has now gone full-colour, redesigned its features pages, covers female issues such as family life and children, and it contains more celebrity-focused pictures alongside the news stories.

Daily Express

This is also the approach that Richard Desmond's Daily Express is following. The newspaper is using its experience in the magazine market (Richard Desmond is the proprietor of the increasingly popular weekly glossy magazine, "OK!") to attract women readers. It is also the path that several of the new free daily newspapers are following, such as The London Paper, which regularly features celebrity stories on its front page.

The Female Interest Approach

Daily Mail

However, Helen Lewis, sub-editor at the Daily Mail, said to me that she is not so sure that the glossy magazine route is correct. She told me, "The problem lies in conflating 'female interest' with 'celebrity story', and although it's been a successful formula, I think it's one that's coming to the end of its usefulness in terms of shifting copies."

The Daily Mail is the most successful newspaper in the UK in terms of attracting female readers. In 1995 (Jan to Dec) 49% of its readers were female, in 2006 (Jan to Dec) this had grown to 52% and the figures for 2007 show that it had held onto this 52% demographic. The Daily Mail enjoys more female than male readers. However, it has not completely gone down the celebrity gossip/magazine style. Undoubtedly it does feature these kinds of stories, but it balances this with news stories and a style proven to attract female readers. According to the National Readership Survey, women care about news - it being their "main reason for purchase" - but they like to be told pretty briskly what has happened, but not what it all may or may not mean. The survey also indicates that British women are turned off by sport and are not too keen on finance.

A quick glance at the Daily Mail after reading this data shows how the Daily Mail has struck the right balance to appeal to the female demographic.

Genevieve Roberts told me during an interview on this issue: "In the UK, the Daily Mail has the highest percentage of female readers, and unsurprisingly, this increases its appeal for advertisers."

The Times
(From July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 42%)

The Times deliberately targets females with its T2 supplement magazine, just as the Guardian (from July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 46%) targets females with its supplement magazine, G2.

These magazins are not aimed solely at women, but The Times' chose to advertise to females when it re-launched the supplement, indicating the importance of female readers to this publication. In a £1m-plus campaign, they targeted a cross-section of women: professionals, housewives and mothers.

Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal Online appears to agree with The Times and the Daily Mail's approach for attracting female readers. In May of this year it launched a new section aimed at a female audience, however, it is also not going down the glossy magazine route. WSJ Online executive editor Alan Murray told Reuters, "Our experience has shown us that there are a lot of business and professional women out there who crave not just fashion and beauty advice, but an intelligent news-oriented community where they can share experiences and swap ideas."

Early indicators point to the Female Interest Approach as having the most success, but only time will tell which strategy works in the long run. The battle lines have been drawn in one of the world's most aggressive newspaper markets, and it is certainly a battle that other editors will watch with interest.

Sources: Newspaper Marketing Agency, Brand Republic, Reuters

French daily newspaper Le Figaro decided to celebrate its status as the premier online news source (3.173 million unique users in June) by reformatting its front page to resemble its Web version.