The paper will be sold for about €0.50, with an initial circulation of 500,000 copies.  Robin Leproux, president of Axel Springer France, said that part of the staff had already been hired, and it should count nearly 300 people in the end (a large number for a French newsroom).

Yet the Bild-type paper will have to be sketched on a different model than the one which has proved successful.

“Germany and Great Britain have a tabloid culture. France doesn’t have it yet. Therefore our daily won’t resemble Bild. We’re going to do our ‘cultural’ learning” said Leproux.

This means two things: Bild won’t be able to count as much on its main strength – being a spicy people tabloid – and Leproux believes that France too will eventually embrace the tabloid culture.

Unlike its German counterpart, based on sex, scandals, politics and sports, the French Bild will “be a big and popular general news newspaper.”

Yet it will still “focus on politics, daily life, sports and ‘people’,” said Leproux.  

Axel Springer is reportedly willing to invest €120 million in three years on this project. Despite the paper’s low cost, Leproux hopes the business model will enjoy the same success it had in Germany (3.5 million copies, 12 million readers) and Poland (launched in 2003, Fakt sells over 500,000 copies).

“In France, we want, initially, to be among the leaders of national dailies. And better eventually,” said Leproux.

In any case, Axel Springer is launching into an all-new context. While he is aware that France won’t be as receptive to the tabloid format and content, he still hopes his paper will enjoy an equivalent success, based on a similar business model, by simply reforming content. Might this be a mistake?

Perhaps he is counting on the influential power of his paper, which could ease French readership and culture into adopting tabloids…

Source: Le Figaro