France: Le Monde to discuss a morning daily

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on March 12, 2007 at 9:26 AM

Jean-Marie Colombani, director of Le Monde, suggested in a staff meeting that the paper should open a discussion on the subject of a possible morning daily. This comes as Axel Springer is about to launch his morning news daily venture in France.

Le Monde is considered by many to be France’s largest general news quality daily (distributed in the evening).

Colombani suggested that the group should consider potential developments, which could include the launch of a morning daily, possibly aimed at a youngish audience.

This is precisely what NRC Handelsblad did in the Netherlands about a year ago. The quality evening paper launched the very successful morning NRC Next, to capture a younger audience in parallel to its evening edition.

Alluding to Axel Springer’s upcoming paper, Colombani said it wouldn’t be cautious for Le Monde not to conduct research for that particular market.

Although these statements are still very broad, they could mark the beginning of a newspaper feud in the French quality daily market.

Source: CB News, France