Results matching “invest 15 million online”

ELMUNDO.es  announced the creation of a another edition of its website last week, to include a new focus on news from the 'Americas'. The decision coincides with the 20th anniversary of the newpaper founded by Pedro J. Ramírez in 1989 and comes following data that reveals a wide redearship base in Latin America.

In the month of September, the website received a record 24 million unique visitors, according to online traffic analyst comScore. Of these, comScore attributed 4.5 million to unique visitors from Latin America, only just under the 4.9 million of popular Argentine daily, Clarín.

While there have been many examinations into whether people prefer to get their news from the Internet or traditional media, Ryan Chittum argues in the Columbia Journalism Review that those who read newspapers overwhelmingly do so via the print editions rather than on the papers' websites. By Chittum's calculations, 92 percent of newspaper reading is done in print and 8 percent takes place online.

To come up with these figures, Chittum used the latest Nielsen Online data and compared it to newspaper circulation and readership numbers. Chittum created a table of the top five newspaper websites, but his main example was the venerable New York Times.

The New Yorker has published a profile of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who recently made media headlines with his $250 million loan to the New York Times. The article, written by Lawrence Wright, offers insight into Slim's intentions toward the paper, as well as considerable biographical detail.

When asked about why he had invested in the paper, Slim responded that "We think it's the best newspaper... The best brand." He sees a successful online future for the Times, it seems, telling Wright that "we think the paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important." Slim currently only reads the paper when he is in the US. Slim also holds a stake in the Independent, which is in serious financial difficulty. He told commented that his decision to take a £12-14 million stake in the Independent was "a bad one."

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

Google and UK advertising agency WPP have teamed up to fund research into the impact of digital advertising on consumer choices. The companies have committed $4.6 million to the three year program, and will specifically try to establish how ads in traditional and online media work together, and what the correct balance should be.

Evidently, advertisers can already assess the effectiveness of online ads based on factors such as how many people click on them. However, many big marketers are still unsure about spending more on web advertising: according to Forrester Research, the average marketer still spends only 9.9% of its ad budget online. The project should gain a better understanding of what makes web campaigns likely to succeed, and therefore hopefully encourage marketers to invest more in online advertising.

The announcement last Friday that Sir Anthony O'Reilly will step down as CEO of Independent News & Media provoked two things: firstly, it sent the company's shares soaring,  then sparked a revived debate regarding its future.

When O'Reilly turns 73 in May, he will be replaced by his son and current chief operating officer, Gavin O'Reilly, who is also president of the World Association of Newspapers. The restructure of the INM will also affect the Board, which will be reduced from 17 members as it presently is, to just 10. According to son Gavin, his father's decision to leave had nothing to do with the impending 200 million euro bond repayment deadline, also in May.

Two potentially revolutionary deals look set to be finalised today, and (apparently coincidentally) both will see Russian oligarchs taking the reins at long standing publications.  In the UK, Alexander Lebedev should become the first Russian to own a British newspaper when he confirms his acquisition of 76% of the Evening Standard.  Across the Channel, Alexandre Pougatchev (son of Serguei) awaits a court judgement in Lille to confirm his purchase of 85% of France Soir.

It will be interesting to see the effect that this influx of Eastern money has upon the editorial and political direction of both the newspapers.  Whilst Lebedev has promised that his influence on the Standard will be 'next to zero', speculation is already mounting.  The Russian has a history of opposition to former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and ran, albeit unsuccessfully, against pro-Kremlin Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

Nielson Online is reporting that the top 10 newspaper sites saw an increase in visitors last month, supporting the case for publishers to "continue to invest online and realign their business focus," communications director Alex Burmaster said.

Media Week is reporting that, on average, the UK's leading newspaper websites saw an increase in page views by 23% than November 2007, and "outperformed the wider online marketplace."

Despite the grim outlook for print publications, online versions have been thriving this year, Burmaster said.  The panel-based research comes following the report by Deloitte predicting that one in 10 newspapers will either cut print frequency, move entirely online or shut down in the next year.

The Guardian was the leader with 3.4 million unique UK visitors, followed by the Telegraph with 3.1 million visitors.  News International online versions of titles The Times and The Sun, followed by the Daily Mail, rounded out the top five.

Source: Media Week

Dominic Carter, trading director at News International has been responsible for boosting profits of The Sun, News of the World, Times and Sunday Times.  Most recently he has decided to invest more in print.  In September, The Sun spent £1.25 million on a sales campaign promoting the newspaper's new national 30p cover-price

Carter stated that it all "depends on the attitude that the newspaper publisher towards their online and offline brands: Our view is that as a business we invest heavily in our offline brands and it will make our online brands more successful as well."

The Wall Street Journal Online has signed a deal with Yahoo! which will enable Yahoo! users in the UK and Ireland to access its coverage of the US presidential election race.

WSJ.com's political blogs, 'Political Perceptions' and 'Washington Wire' will be available on a Yahoo! microsite specially created.

Tristan Leaver, director of business and audience development at the Wall Street Journal digital network for EMEA, said it is, "a very effective way for WSJ.com to raise brand awareness and expose our unparalleled content to a new UK audience."

In an interview with the EditorsWeblog in September, Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Murray, said the brand had ambitious plans to expand internationally. This deal with Yahoo! looks like a significant step in pushing the Wall Street Journal brand and content to a European audience.

Source: Brand Republic

US: Newly redesigned WSJ site attracts 10 million users on re-launch day
US: Murdoch on the future of newspapers
US: Wall Street Journal to launch new website on Tuesday
Wall Street Journal unveils magazine supplement, WSJ
US: Wall Street Journal launches new mobile application
Murdoch: Newspapers willing to invest in new forms of delivery will prosper

In the latest stage of reinvigorating the Wall Street Journal brand, its online edition - WSJ.com - has undergone a huge makeover, relaunching on Tuesday.

The parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., appears determined to put its mark on its latest acquisition; the President of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Gordon McLeod, reportedly said that the investment into the website revamp is a "big financial commitment."

The Editors Weblog spoke with the Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Murray, about the shake up occurring at the newspaper. Murray was bullish about the changes, saying, "The new owners have made it clear that they no longer want people to look at the Wall Street Journal as a second read. It should be their primary read, it should suit all their information needs. We want it to be the ultimate news source for our engaged, affluent and educated readers."

Murray went on to speak about the redesign of WSJ.com, the recent changes in newsroom layout and management, and the ambitious plans for the future of the Wall Street Journal brand. He made it clear that, "(The website relaunch) is not a finishing point. This is the launching pad." 

Murray was particularly excited about the relaunch occuring at the same time as the Lehman Brothers story breaking, saying "We are delighted that the biggest financial news story since 1929 happens to coincide with the launch of our revamped site!"

"Newsreel" revolutionizes site navigation
For the new, sleek look of WSJ.com, News Corp's primary design motivation was to take advantage of users who "come in through the side door". Individual article pages mostly found through search engines, have been equipped with multiple navigation tools, to keep readers on the WSJ site.

Arguably the most interesting navigation feature is "Newsreel", essentially a news ticker placed at the top of the article. As the reader browses an article page, Newsreel scrolls through the days most important stories from the section the user is in. For example, if a user is in the business section, the Newsreel displays the top business stories of the day.    

In addition to the new layout and navigation functions, the Journal's newsroom is upping its content production to help keep readers on the site. The redesign also aims to be more colourful with more photos and includes an enhanced video player, an increasingly prevalent aspect of all news websites. Further features are set to roll out over the coming months. 

Social network for the business community
Perhaps most important for the WSJ's new owners is maintaining WSJ.com's impressive online subscription base, which has reached over 1 million paying members. Apart from increasing content, News Corp hopes to hold on to these subscribers with exclusive features such as WSJ Community, a social network for WSJ subscribers.

The key feature of this new social networking tool is that members must use their real names, which is aimed at cutting out any random, anonymous comments or useless noise found on other Internet news sites. Murray believes the quality of the site's subscriber base will create "a higher quality conversation". He acknowledges WSJ.com will not achieve the numbers of a chat on Yahoo Finance but, "we think the usefulness and quality is going to be key". The Journal is considering opening up the Community to non-subscribers in the future, who, just like subscribers, would only be able to join and interact with their real name.

WSJ.com has been the world's most successful subscription newssite for years and its membership keeps growing. According to Murray, online subscriptions have increased 26% in the past two years. And the number of unique user is skyrocketing too: "By our numbers, we now have 17 million visitors to WSJ.com" - 8 million more than two years ago - "and in September it is going to be even bigger than that. Therefore, Murray doesn't see any conflict in bringing more people in and letting them sample WSJ content.


Integrated Newsroom

Murray revealed that the Wall Street Journal is not only undergoing a radical change on its website, but is also changing in its newsroom, "The relaunch coincides with a complete integration and reorganisation of the reporting and editing staff."

Managing Editor, Robert Thomson, has spearheaded the integration programme, which has brought together the online and print staff. Last week, Thomson debuted a news hub in the newsroom where the senior editors from print, online, Dow Jones Newswires and MarketWatch all sit together and co-ordinate the coverage throughout the day.

The morning news meeting has been "totally turned upside down," according to Murray. It now begins with a report from the online team, then from Dow Jones Newswires, then MarketWatch and, only after discussing the coverage for real-time news, do they look at coverage for the day's paper.

The substantial Dow Jones Newswire team is also being moved to make the integration process physical, with the whole team being brought across the river to sit alongside their New York print colleagues. This move will happen, "sometime next Spring" Murray said.

The Wall Street Journal team has been undergoing training to prepare for the integration process. Murray reported, "A simple example is headlines. You have to write a different kind of headline in the online world and in the print world. We will continue to do that kind of training."

The future of the Wall Street Journal

The Editors Weblog asked if this process was the beginning of a long term-reinvigoration process for the Wall Street Journal brand, Murray said: "You bet! We have very ambitious plans for international, we have very ambitious plans for premium products on top of this online platform and we have a whole schedule of online innovations that we are planning over the course of the next 18 months. This is just the beginning"

"Look for us forming closer links with all the social networks because we are not trying to compete with social networks, we want to make it as easy as possible for our users to share our content over social networks and to bring their friends and connection into our community"

Murray also added that News Corp is confident about the future of print, stating, "The Wall Street Journal under its new management is investing in both print and online, so I would say we are very optimistic about the future of newspapers. We may be the only people who are optimistic! We are dedicated to delivering our news on all platforms"

Source: Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, paidcontent.org

See also:

US: Murdoch on the future of newspapers
US: Wall Street Journal to launch new website on Tuesday
Wall Street Journal unveils magazine supplement, WSJ
US: Wall Street Journal launches new mobile application
Murdoch: Newspapers willing to invest in new forms of delivery will prosper

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announces its third annual Knight News Challenge, a contest that will grant up to US$5 million for ideas that transform local community news with the help of digital tools like social media, Web 2.0 or multimedia content. A new "incubator" site, the News Challenge Garage, was created in order to offer online criticism and advice for applicants.

For its relaunch, the Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews with some top editors at leading newspapers around the world about the future of journalism. We kick off the series with Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief of the Globe & Mail in Canada.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)


"News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"

How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We no longer define our company as a newspaper or print company. We define ourselves as a news organization. I would say we began to do so about two years ago. In fact, I can almost pin it down to the day.

We had what in Canada was a major exclusive on a deal that would end the lockout of professional hockey. We were able to confirm the story at about 3:00 in the afternoon. We decided to put it up on the web rather than wait for the next day's paper, even though we would be tipping off our competitors.

While this wasn't the first time we had ever done this, it was a pretty major story and "giving it away" generated some internal debate. Two things happened:

    1. Over a hundred other media around the world cited globeandmail.com as the source of the story in their own reports.

    2. The scoop held in the Canadian newspapers. Even though we had posted it in the afternoon, nobody was able to match it. They also had to cite us in the next day's papers.

The moment presented a good opportunity to truly define what we knew we were becoming - a news organization with a strong base and history in print and a strong presence and future in digital.

At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Not a whole lot. Printed material has been around for centuries and newspapers have encountered many incursions. The web and mobile have impressive technological and story-telling strengths. They extend our creative and physical reach.

But the newspaper also boasts unique attributes.  It is a thing of beauty that you can touch and take with you.  It is filled with information you didn't know you wanted to know.  It is an entity with which a reader can enjoy an intimate, emotional relationship.   It is a daily one-stop validation of the world around you.

Some forms of newspapers may not continue to exist, but in one form or another, newspapers will survive the internet age as they have survived other ages.

In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

I see it more as part of the continuity. I like to say that the platform isn't print or the web or mobile but that the platform is the journalism. That's the distinguishing factor and the competitive advantage of most news organizations.

The role of story telling goes back centuries and isn't going away. The craft of journalism, the skill of finding out and communicating important information and sorting the wheat from the chaff for your readers, will be in even higher demand as stories become more complex. Digital provides extra-ordinary new ways to tell stories in our world and for readers to take control of distribution and share with one another. So new opportunities abound.

It's only a break if we aren't clever enough to earn the money from the web necessary to finance our journalistic undertakings. I don't see that as an impossible challenge.

Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

First off, the closer a journalist can be to his or her audience the better. Users do not replace journalists, they supplement them. We have to stop being afraid to tap into the intelligence of our readers. We also have to understand that we play a unique role as full-time and fully-trained fact finders and story tellers. We now have a new tool at our disposal: the relationship we can build with readers.

Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

I think, for news organizations that are confident enough to invest in their journalistic resources, this should be a great age for investigative journalism. In the clutter and clatter of a 500-million channel universe, it is a great differentiator and in an age in which a non-deferential public demands greater public transparency, the place for investigative journalism should be secure.

The fact that it is not speaks to how fear and fragmentation overwhelm many in the industry. It is great that a non-profit, philanthropic entity in the United States is being established to pursue investigative journalism. But I believe there is also a commercial case to be made. The fact that so many news organizations are cutting resources actually creates even more room in the marketplace for those willing to pursue this kind of journalistic-intensive, public-interest approach.


Stay tuned for upcoming interviews about the future of journalism.

Source: Ed Greespon, editor Globe & Mail

The Guardian boasts UK’s most popular newspaper site, yet its newsroom has been traditionally non-integrated – till the paper moves to its new premises next fall. In Part 1, several editors give a few details about the ‘liberal-ed’ approach to integration and describe some of the recipes for Guardian Unlimited’s success.

Since the website of Zero Hora, brazilian newspaper, was launched in Sep. 2007, its newsroom has been thoroughly integrated, allowing efficient cooperation between the online and print staffs. But the  newsroom was officially inaugurated last Friday.

Everyone has been saying it. At UBS Media week presentations Tuesday the basic view was that newspaper print advertising revenue will continue to fall, that newspaper internet revenue will continue to climb, that combined the total revenue will still continue to decrease.

Seeking Alpha takes a look at Gannett’s ‘Web 3.0’ online holdings, which are its only operations that are currently growing. Thanks to online initiatives, Gannett has recaptured revenues that were once – but no longer are – a given for newspapers.

The UK’s largest regional press publisher, Johnston Press, is to invest £10 million in digital operations next year.

The Trinity Mirror group acquired the online job site TotallyLegal.com for $23.6 million. As newspapers tend to believe they are losing classifieds revenue to online websites, the Trinity Mirror’s solution is to invest in those competitors.

Global newspaper circulation rose nearly 2 percent in 2006 and the number of newspaper titles also increased significantly, according to provisional data revealed today by the World Association of Newspapers. Paid-for newspaper circulation went up 1.9 percent year-on-year to more than 510 million paid-for copies in 2006 and the number of new paid-for titles grew to more than 11,000 for the first time in history, WAN announced during presentations in London to investors, analysts and media correspondents.

In this section, John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, and Jeff Jarvis, new media proponent and founder of Buzzmachine, comment on the results of the Newsroom Barometer. Both found that editors’ optimism and open-mindedness to new media was a clear indication that newspapers were embracing the digital revolution, yet Jarvis fears that may not be enough…

Just after Axel Springer executives announced the company would be investing in digital, The Guardian’s chief executive said that the paper would be investing £15 million in the next 18 months to revamp its online resources, Guardian Unlimited.

The Sun’s online edition claimed it attracted 56 million new unique visitors from around the world in 2006, and generated 1.2 billion page impressions last year. An online surge explained by investment, good design and sharp management.

20 Minutes, a most successful freesheet launched in France in 2002, is planning on further investments in its online ventures, as well as the publication of a free weekly business title. 

This article about the future of the French press was recently published in Le Monde in its Nov. 16th 2006 edition. Since comments can’t be posted by non-members on Le Monde’s website, the following is an extract from the article:

"Everything had started off well: in 1900, France led the world in the distribution of daily newspapers.

Time went by and the rankings changed. The daily French press scores poorly in most European rankings. The Daily Telegraph alone sells more copies than all of the French national news dailies, and France has fewer dailies (81) than Sweden (93), a country with seven times less inhabitants."