Results matching “europe free new”

German market research company, Mindline Media, have released a survey indicating that the German public would like free papers.

Germany is one of the few markets in Europe which has not seen the launch of free dailies.

A thousand people between the age of 14 and 49 were questioned and 46% thought free papers would make newspapers in general more attractive. The survey also revealed that 40% wanted smaller (tabloid) newspapers. Mindline reported that Germans would like more local news (36%) and more flexible subscriptions - for instance weekend-only - (30%).

More pictures and comics were only favoured by a small minority.

Source: EJC Media, Newspaper Innovation and Horizant

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.

For the first time, European readership of free dailies has gone down. At the end of 2007 it was 27,300,000 - now it's 27,000,000.

The decline is not significant, but is it a sign of a new trend?

World circulation is still up by 2%, largely because of launches in South America and Asia.

Source: Newspaper Innovation

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

Wall Street Journal launched a glossy lifestyle magazine, WSJ., today.

WSJ., with a global circulation of 960,000, will appear on Friday, September 5, in The Wall Street Journal Asia and The Wall Street Journal Europe and on Saturday, September 6, in the U.S. Weekend Edition of the Journal.

The magazine will cover cars, fashion, property, philanthropy, personalities and travel.

The 104-page premiere issue of WSJ. in the U.S. (80 pages in the Europe and Asia editions) is launching with 51 advertisers, 19 of whom are new to The Wall Street Journal franchise. WSJ. will have a circulation of 800,000 in the U.S. and 160,000 outside the U.S.

WSJ. content will also be available for free online at www.wsj.com from September 6. The magazine will remain as a quarterly publication in 2008 but transition to a monthly magazine in mid-2009.  

Source: Dow Jones and Company

The mobile news market in the US will soon be ripe for mass consumption, according to Robert Samuels, Director of Mobile Products, Mobile Web, Messaging, Games and Alternative Platforms at The New York Times.

"It's been a runaway success," said Samuels, speaking of the growth of the Times' mobile site. "Numbers will continue to grow, there is a lot of industry dynamic supporting this."

The Times' mobile site, which drew 500,000 page views in January 2007, received over 10 million hits by December of the same year, and soared up to 19 million views in May 2008.

Although "most of the consumption on our site is through high end mobile devices so far" such as BlackBerry phones, Treo mobile devices and iPhones, the market is rapidly growing for the mass market, especially amongst commuters.

Generally speaking, the consumption patterns are similar for the online and mobile editions: business and politics are very popular, as well as blogs or most-emailed stories. "But amongst the mobile applications we've been rolling out, some of them are particularly tailored to the mobile user such as the mobile user real estate listings," said Samuels, which enable users on the go to receive listings based on specific criteria such as number of bedrooms, price...

"In America, I think the general web browsing for the mobile site has been at an advantage in terms of user behavior and pricing over SMS products," said Samuels.  All the Times' text message alerts link off to the mobile site to encourage users to browse it and read the whole story.

According to Samuels, text messaging will continue to grow for specific uses, such as stock listings or weather forecasts (see this study about text messaging and mobile usage), but "the predominant, long-term mass consumption, will be more than likely be browsing just because that's such a dominant behavior here in the US," he said. Still, "Text messaging for content adoption will grow in the US, we are simply well behind other markets like Europe and Asia."

As of now, the Times' hasn't created any position dedicated to editing or rewriting content for mobile consumption. "I don't think we'll hire specific people to tailor content for mobile per se," said Samuels.

However, most mobile articles are slightly edited upstream in the production process, to make headlines appropriate for mobile devices - for example, an E-hed for mobile can be made to stand alone without a picture, or pictures can be cropped to fit the device.

Is mobile news more adapted to local news outlets that can send out locally relevant alerts to users? "I think it is most definitely appropriate for them but by no means exclusive for them," said Samuels. National brands can also establish themselves on the local mobile news market. In the second half of the year, Samuels plans to roll out restaurant listings, in addition to its show time and weather services.

The Times is also developing news alerts for scheduled news events, such as the Olympics or the presidential elections in the US. For the Olympics, users can sign up to receive various updates including postings from the Rings blog, Top-10 medal count charts or the schedule of events.

While most of the Times' mobile news alert services are free, its mobile games and products will remain paid-for for the foreseeable future. "Through experience and industry research, still the model of paying for a mobile game is something that users are willing to engage in," said Samuels.

Source: Robert Samuels, Director of Mobile Products, Mobile Web, Messaging, Games and Alternative Platforms at The New York Times

After a court case between Metro Hungary and Metro Cash & Carry AG, the court has decided that free daily Metro Hungary will have to change its name to Metropol.



The Hungarian newspaper is still a monopoly in the country, which is not common in Europe. Busz, a competitor launched last year soon had to go weekly and Budapest 7 Nap - another free weekly launched a year ago - just closed last week.

Source: Newspaper Innovation via IFRA Executive News Service

Global traditional media outlets remain popular in Europe, In spite of the influx of online audiovisual content and the growing popularity of Internet portals as information sources.

A recent European Media and Marketing Survey (EMS) showed that The Financial Times remains the premier paid publication with 548,000 readers, with The International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal lagging behind.

Free dailies Metro and 20 Minutes have 2.5 million and 998,000 readers respectively.

A "solid performance" was also noted at the National Geographic, with its 2.14 million readers, making it the most popular magazine as it outranks Time, reported Le Figaro .

Inflight magazines such as Air France Magazine (1.1 million readers) and Lufthansa Magazine (1.4 million readers) are the most read, according to the survey.

Source: Le Figaro through IFRA Executive News Service

Cholpon Orozobekova, editor of Bishkek-based De Facto newspaper announced last Tuesday that publication will stop until at least 20 August, due to harassment from the authorities. Over two weeks ago, the paper was accused of printing false information about the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee, CNW Group reported.

The 12 June issue featured a reader's letter complaining about corruption in the capital's tax department. Taalaibek Dalbaev, the head of the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee, promptly filed for libel and the persecutor's office took legal action against the paper.

The persecutor's office concluded that the letter was fake and a warrant was obtained to search the newspaper's office. The paper was searched twice, its financial assets and bank account frozen.

Last Tuesday, Nurlanbek Chakiev, a presidential spokesperson sais that the authorities do not plan to shut De Facto down. However, he mentioned that the paper defied professional ethics.

"The decision to bring a criminal prosecution against the newspaper instead of a civil suit, the freezing of its accounts, the threats received by its editor and the speed with which the judicial authorities acted are all disproportionate and suggest that real aim is to force De Facto to close," said Reporters Without Borders.

Various organizations have questioned the viability of press freedom in Kyrgyzstan and whether  the government permits independent media to function correctly, reported Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty.

Source: CNW Group through World News

The Weblog continues its mini-compilation (last Friday: Europe) of the top 10 paid-for and free newspapers in terms of circulation, broken down by region in the world. Further figures about the newspaper industry can be found in the latest issue of World Press Trends.

If you have further information on these figures or circulation trends, please feel free to share them with us.

Click the picture to view full-size:

In the latest issue of World Press Trends, the newspaper industry's most comprehensive compilation of statistics about newspapers worldwide, readers can find a list of the top 100 newspapers in the world, advertising and circulation figures, and more.

Throughout the next week, the Weblog is offering the top-10 newspaper list in terms of circulation broken down by world region, both for paid-for dailies and free papers, starting with Europe (click on picture to view full-size):

In the days after the 61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum, the debate was still raging:
Will print products remain the core business model of the newspaper industry in the long-term?
Will digital platforms become newspapers' primary source of distribution and revenue?
Or will both print and digital work side by side to sustain newspaper journalism?
Guardian Comment is Free columnist Roy Greenslade and World Association of Newspaper CEO Timothy Balding sounded off on the topic.

Greenslade struck first. Having attended the conference, he pointed to what he considered a divide between publishers and editors and their respective conference programs; "The congress, the publishers' conference, was dominated by the upbeat statistics about the good health of newspaper sales, newspaper launches and newspaper profits"... "Yet all the discussions at the editors' forum were dominated by how to deal with the decline - whether rapid or gradual - of newspaper circulations and the accompanying flight of advertising as people turn their backs on newsprint in favour of the internet."

Balding responded by noting that, on the whole, global newspaper industry figures are positive. Circulations are up in 105 nations and stable in 31. Paid titles are up in 85 countries and stable in 83. But this doesn't stop at print. The Congress, Balding pointed out, gave many examples of traditional publishers succeeding in the digital realm and shared multimedia strategies with their colleagues from around the world. WAN continues to do "absolutely everything we can to make sure that our publishers and our editors receive the best and most reliable information about digital developments and the best success stories on their successful exploitation," said Balding. The association does not "pretend... to know the digital future."

Perhaps the real divide comes not from the publishers and editors at the World Newspaper Congress, but rather from developed and developing nations. It is no surprise that in the United States and many countries in Western Europe, print newspapers are experiencing declines in circulation and profit margins. These papers have had trouble making up for lost revenues on the Web. On the other hand, newspapers in developing countries such as India and China are witnessing huge growth and will continue to do so for years to come. Their digital offerings and revenues will also increase as Internet and mobile penetration rapidly spread.

The essence of the Congress, is to bring papers from these nations together. It is the platform where they share ideas; new ways to create and distribute content, strategies for reaching new audiences, and creative ways to make money in print and online. And sharing ideas between different markets will ensure that the newspaper industry, in both developing and developed nations, will continue to flourish.

There has been a lot of coverage of the results of the Newsroom Barometer, including Reuters' own take on the findings.

If you haven't taken a look at the main findings (namely editors' massive acceptation of the integrated newsroom model, as well as about half of them believing news will be free in the future and that online will be the most common platform for news), you can read more below:

Read Part 1: Presentation - main results, the integrated newsroom will be the norm
Read Part 2: Multimedia, multi-skilled and integrated
Read Part 3: The future of the press
Read Part 4: Who participated in the survey?
Read Part 5: Comments by John Zogby and WEF President George Brock
Read Part 6: Threats to newspapers, areas of investment, more results


But here are a few more results that may have gone under the radar.

If provided resources to invest in editorial quality, what would you do first within the newsroom?

Across all categories, the responses illustrated two clear concerns for editors, which superceded all others: their staff needs to be attuned to new media (36% of the respondents would first train their staff in new media), and they need more journalists to produce quality coverage (30%, up from 22% last year). As more newsrooms face layoffs and tight budgets, editors are increasingly seeking to safeguard one of the main conditions to quality journalism: a team of qualified journalists.

For editors from newspapers whose number of journalists had decreased, their main priority was to recruit more journalists, at 50%, while also recognizing the necessity of new media training, at 31%. Even among newspapers whose staff had increased, 26% of editors wished to recruit more journalists (36% new media training).

This clearly shows that, in the view of editors, cutting staff and journalistic resources is not a solution - to the contrary - to resolve financial concerns a newspaper may have.

Overall, what do you view as the two greatest threats to the future of your newspaper?

57% of respondents saw the biggest threat to the future of newspapers coming from declining readership among young people. One of the greatest challenges faced by newspapers today is structural, linked to a change in habits among readers, as they become consumers of alternative forms of media.
Tied to this, a good share of respondents (37%) saw the Internet and digital media as a threat. This was closely followed by lack of editorial innovation (36%) and lack of investment (29%), which are also inter-related.

The results showed a split between perception of threats as being external, due to contextual evolutions of the market (young readership decline, digital media) and internal, due to lack of newspaper innovation - or the financial means to innovate.

Now looking specifically to your newspaper's editorial independence in the future, what do you view as the principal threat?

Perceived threats to editorial independence ranged relatively closely from 13% who listed 'other' concerns, to 23% who thought the biggest pressure would come from advertisers, through 19% who listed political pressure and 20% shareholder pressure (20%). Still, a combined 42% perceived the main threat as being related to newspapers' financial dependence, whether on shareholders and advertisers.

Where newspapers were heavily capitalized in the stock market, such as in Western Europe and North America, shareholder pressure was strong, 35% and 23% respectively, but political pressure didn't pose any threat - 3% for both.

Inversely, in many other regions, financial pressures were less important, but lack of press freedom led many editors to fear political pressure.

Do you think that in the future opinion and analysis pages will:

The results were stable compared to 2006. Two thirds (67%) of the respondents believed opinion and analysis pages would increase: many foresaw the upcoming evolution of newspaper content, which will be less about factual news and more about analysis and commentary.

An astonishingly small number of respondents from North America (50%) believed analysis and opinion would increase, compared to 76% for Western Europe (and 78% Eastern). This large difference underlines a divergence in editors' perception of the function their newspapers will have in the future, whether these increasingly focus on constant breaking news or instead turn to more analytical, magazine-type content. These results also reflect worries by American editors about having the proper resources to increase their opinion and analytical content.


If you would like more information about the Newsroom Barometer, don't hesitate to contact us. And let's not forget that the bright revelation of Barometer, as was the case last year, was that 84% of newspaper editors are optimistic about their newspaper's future, despite frequent doom and gloom reports...