The conference, to be held on 24 and 25 February at the Sheraton Roma Hotel, will examine the threats, opportunities and weaknesses presented by the main competitors of newspapers for advertising revenue:

- Television. As the paid-for TV model comes under threat from fragmentation and ad-avoidance technologies, how will newspapers benefit and how can they take advantage of these developments to increase advertising share?

- Radio, where revenues are growing and, in many markets, doing so at the expense of newspapers. What are the opportunities to exploit multi-media partnerships and, if partnerships aren't an option, how can newspapers better deal with the competition?

- Posters or billboards. Considered for a long time as the "poor relation" of the advertising world, poster revenues are seeing a renaissance, both in terms of creativity and the provision of audience research data. There are ways for newspapers to combat this resurgent media.

The session on "Your key advertising competitors and how to combat them" is
one of six sessions at the conference, which will be hosted by the Italian Newspaper Publishers Association, FIEG. Other topics include:

- Key revenue providers - Agencies. This session will discuss how newspapers
can get closer to agencies, how they can improve advertising agency revenues, and how agencies are changing and the likely impact of these changes on newspaper revenues.

- Pricing and target planning. This session will focus on how to optimise rate cards to achieve revenue objectives and will explore the effects that discounts have on clients' views of newspapers. It will also show the best ways to devise and implement an advertising target achievement plan. And it
will examine how editorial departments can ethically help achieve advertising budgets.

- The impact of the classified advertising revolution on newspapers. This session will provide up to 30 new case studies from WAN's updated classified advertising on-line survey that show how newspapers are responding to the potential risks and opportunities from on-line classifieds.

- The new internet opportunities. This session will be dedicated to exploiting the cross-selling opportunities in newspapers and the internet.

- The latest research. This session will present reports on the best current research projects, particularly those that help fulfil the increasing demand by advertisers on newspaper advertising effectiveness.

The World Newspaper Advertising Conference & Expo will be chaired by Moritz
Wuttke, Head of Business Development for PubliGroupe.