Can giving 18 year-olds free newspapers save the French press?

After banks and cars, is the press the next candidate for a government bailout?  Among a 600 million euro package of measures designed to help France's struggling newspaper industry, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Friday that the government will be offering all 18 year-olds a free newspaper of their choice once a week. Newspapers themselves will provide free copies and the state will cover the cost of delivering them to the thousands of homes, Sarkozy clarified.

The measures announced came largely from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released on 8 January. The proposals were largely based on reducing productions costs, but the study also recommends that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online.

For their eighteenth birthdays, teenagers will receive a yearlong subscription to their favourite general news daily. In a speech to industry leaders, Sarkozy stressed that "The habit of reading a daily paper takes hold at a very young age." The plan is presumably an attempt to introduce teenagers, who frequently only get their news online, to the delights of the printed word. A similar idea has been tested by Ouest-France and 41 regional newspapers over the past few years, offering some 18-24 year-olds a free paper once a week for a year. Ouest France reported that 15 per cent of young people wanted to continue with a paid subscription after the year was over.

So far, the national scheme has been met with significant criticism. The free subscription idea was among 10 ideas recommended to the government by a sub-committee charged with considering the specific problem of youth readership, but was far from the top of the list. Two different strategies were most highly recommended: assuring that a youth voice was in newsrooms themselves to begin to address core content and platform issues via a cadre of young "ambassadors," and creating a habit of regular newspaper reading by assuring a short but daily newspaper reading period in school.

"French papers are made for 50 or 60 year-olds, not for teenagers."

Francois Dufour, who headed the youth advisory committee, is disappointed with the government's decision and has little faith in the scheme's potential for success. He told the Editors Weblog that "teens only read what they are interested in:" just because they are given a free paper does not mean that they are likely to read it. It is the newspapers that need to change if they are going to appeal to young people; at the moment "French papers are made for 50 or 60 year-olds, not for teenagers." He also questioned whether 19 year-olds, even those who might have enjoyed having a free newspaper every day, would be subsequently sufficiently enthused to start spending over 200 euros a year on their own subscription.

"It's a shame because this solution is a mere band-aid, when radical surgery is needed," commented Aralynn McMane, World Association of Newspapers Director of young readership development, who advised at one of the committee's meetings. "If the content is not compelling, free subscriptions are a waste."  

Frederic Filloux, Editor of the international divison of the Schibsted group and former Editor in Chief of 20 minutes also maintains that newspapers need to tackle content issues and that the plan is unlikely to work.  "If young people are not reading newspapers, it is not because of the price but because what they offer is inadequate.  The press must improve its quality and provide more pertinent content to seduce new generations," he told Le Monde.  He believes that the scheme is merely "a gadget to please editors," as it achievable at marginal cost to the papers themselves.

"If young people are not reading newspapers, it is not because of the price but because what they offer is inadequate."

The package also includes an increase in state expenditure to support newspaper and magazine deliveries to 70 million euro from 8 million last year, and the government will double its spending on advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face, and Sarkozy announced a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents.

France's press is among the least profitable in Europe and according to the Guardian, is "stifled by rigid communist press unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany." Sarkozy has promised to increase points of sale, and work to improve newspaper delivery to both kiosks and homes. Another major problem is high printing costs, as presses are controlled by communist union Le Livre. Sarkozy announced that the state is aiming to reduce printing costs by 30-40 per cent by negotiating with the union.  

State-funding of the press has been an issue in France for quite some time, and the Guardian asserted on Friday that "the public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations." So state aid at such a time might not be the wisest choice.

It remains to be seen how many 18 year-olds take up the offer of a free paper, and any concrete benefits to the industry will not be measurable for some years.  World Editors Forum Director Bertrand Pecquerie believes that the programme would be more "cost-effective and helpful if it were linked to some paid-for online content becoming free," as young people today are unlikely to become dedicated print fans. Without tackling the root cause of the problem - the content of the newspapers themselves - it seems foolish to hope that more easily accessible, even free, papers are going to up circulation numbers enough to save the suffering industry.  And the idea that thousands of teenagers are going to find the time in their day to sit down and read a broadsheet rather than scan news online is somewhat optimistic, to say the least.