Jan Prins, former editor in chief, UPM-Uitgevers and self confessed Newspaper Junkie tells Editors Weblog “PCM, intended several times to launch a free newspaper - the latest attempt was last November when a similar plan of The Volkskrant was skipped in favor of a cooperation with private investor Marcel Boekhoorn, who had announced to invest many of his millions in a new quality free daily De Pers. Within a month PCM's new CEO Ton aan de Stegge had to break the deal because his supervisory board refused to approve this cooperation.”

Prins went on to say “The broken deal was not the only complication - the newspapers had to start without editor in chief Ben Rogmans, who has been forbidden by court - until October -  to do his job.  His former employer Royal Wegener used a competitor clause in his employment contract, because they were unwelcome surprised by his transfer.”

We spoke to Ben Rogmans who is frustrated by the injunction to stop him from officially starting at the paper until October 2007, but delighted by the successful launch.

The newspaper is distributed in the twelve major commuter stations in Holland, directly competing with Metro and Sp!tz. It has plans for free distribution at 1000 points including shops, cafes, ‘Bruna’ shops, post offices, taxi’s, large offices and a chain of petrol stations. According to Newspaper Innovations, competitors of De Pers have been tying up distribution rights too: “Sp!ts made a deal with Café DE (a Dutch Starbucks look-a-like) while Metro extended the distribution contract with McDonald’s to 2009”. However, according to Rogmans, there is a waiting list for those who wish to stock De Pers. Sounds fairly impressive, especially with two already established freesheets on the market.

The differentiator of De Pers seems to be the quality and focus of the stories. They are longer, in depth, original stories. Rogmans also cites the number of editorial staff. It is evident that they feel a quality daily needs a good sized editorial team which De Pers intends to use both for print and web. The paper has a web first policy and wishes to create something that gives “news and refreshment”.

The paper is on track to reach a circulation of 500,000 by the end of the first month and the target is to reach a circulation of 800,000 in the last quarter of the year, making it the most popular newspaper in Holland. After this period, a home delivery service in certain areas will be launched alongside a subscription service costing just €95 per year.

One problem with the recent storm of freesheets is litter. In London, there has been a public argument over clean up costs which one council estimates to be £500,000 per year. Rogmans tells us that “the press pays for the clean up costs, it’s very common in the Netherlands. No problem, fair enough”.

As of yet, De Pers hasn’t impacted the circulation of the other freesheets. Rogmans thinks that would take about a year. He also sees De Pers eventually impacting paid for dailies, but not for a few years.

There are more freesheets coming out of the woodwork. Prins tells Editors Weblog that the “Dutch publisher PCM is planning, together with telecom operator KNP, a new free daily that is about to be launched in May of this year. The title will be Dag (meaning Day)”

The initial projections for Dag are not as aggressive as De Pers, in fact around half at 200,000 despite consideration of door-to-door as well as at the usual distribution points. PCM has worked on several other free daily plans but none of them have actually emerged onto the market.

Prins also says that “…it will be a multi-media concept, including mobile platforms, web-versions and TV-screens in trains.” The vision itself sounds good and in line with world newspaper trends of teaming up delivery mediums of news. Having news in audio and video format is something that many newspapers are experimenting with online at the moment. Having the newspaper delivering news through TV screens is massively innovative and has the potential to expand the brand immensely.

Rogmans however, doubts this particular project will come to fruition.  

In addition to the new freesheets De Pers and Dag, Metro is reported to be thinking of a finance based niche title. This is as yet undecided. For more info, click here.

Surely six free newspapers, not to mention the TV screens on trains is enough to saturate any market, let alone one that already has an established market with an extraordinarily high level of subscriptions. Rogmans thinks Holland is a flourishing market but that the business models will change over time. It depends how fast the existing large publishers can react to the developments, and how flexible they can be. He expects more freesheets and mergers between the existing dailies. It certainly won’t be a revolution, more likely slow changes over the next four years


Source: Ben Rogmans, Jan Prins and the weblog Newspaper Innovation