Lagardere print giant goes digital

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on January 26, 2007 at 1:10 PM

French group Lagardere, one of the world’s leading magazine publishers, announced that it would likely close its print titles and proceed to layoffs, as part of a three-year plan to become a digital content provider.

The print giant said its plan was to become a "leader in the generation of content, particularly digital, and in aggregation on markets where the group is present."

The group said it would cut 7 to 10% of its 9,900 workforce across 40 countries – between 240 and 350 jobs will be suppressed in France.

The company expects to save €70 million in costs per year by the end of 2009.

Lagardere said that "these sales should generate a higher operating margin than that from magazines on paper," in a move similar to Dow Jones’ sale of local newspapers.

The goal is for digital activities to account for nearly 10% of sales by the end of 2009 – from less than 1% in 2006.

The trend has been predicted, feared or hoped for, recognized and admitted, and now media companies are enacting it: readers buy less print, they want more multimedia, so do advertisers.

Now it’s newspapers and media companies’ turn to provide news and information on these new platforms, without changing the quality of the service they offer.

Source: Expatica.com

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