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Back in 2001, the Guardian newspaper asked, "Where have all the women gone?", and it is a question that has plagued the editors of leading British newspapers for the past two decades as only 41% of women - 10.3 million - read a daily UK newspaper (October to March 2008).
 
Genevieve Roberts, a former features writer and reporter for The Independent, now an advertising planner for McCann Erickson on the Evening Standard account, told me: "Almost every newspaper is trying to appeal to female readers. In crude commercial terms, females are the main shoppers in more than 50% of households, and advertisers want to appeal to people who shop so they have the opportunity to buy their product."

This is the crux of the issue, advertising is now more than ever driving the bottom-line of newspapers, and it is crucial that newspapers attract the right demographic to appeal to advertising agencies and businesses.

Without female readers, the advertisers will look elsewhere.

The Glossy Magazine Approach

Newspapers are tackling this problem in two distinctly different ways: the glossy/gossip magazine approach and the female interest approach.

Daily Mirror
(From July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 43%)

Daily Mirror Editor Richard Wallace has discretely changed the focus of the newspaper from the traditional male-orientated tabloid to appeal to women who buy popular weekly gossip magazines.

Andrew Higton, a sub-editor at The Mirror, told me that this marketing approach has involved a significant change in culture for the staff. Editors, reporters and sub-editors are often told to make copy more "female-friendly". This new approach is applied at all levels, for example, when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France visited the UK, subs were told to focus much of the story on Carla Brunei's outfits.

The Daily Mirror's shift towards the glossy magazine style has also involved changing the look of the whole newspaper in an attempt to make it more visually appealing to the female market. The newspaper has now gone full-colour, redesigned its features pages, covers female issues such as family life and children, and it contains more celebrity-focused pictures alongside the news stories.

Daily Express

This is also the approach that Richard Desmond's Daily Express is following. The newspaper is using its experience in the magazine market (Richard Desmond is the proprietor of the increasingly popular weekly glossy magazine, "OK!") to attract women readers. It is also the path that several of the new free daily newspapers are following, such as The London Paper, which regularly features celebrity stories on its front page.

The Female Interest Approach

Daily Mail

However, Helen Lewis, sub-editor at the Daily Mail, said to me that she is not so sure that the glossy magazine route is correct. She told me, "The problem lies in conflating 'female interest' with 'celebrity story', and although it's been a successful formula, I think it's one that's coming to the end of its usefulness in terms of shifting copies."

The Daily Mail is the most successful newspaper in the UK in terms of attracting female readers. In 1995 (Jan to Dec) 49% of its readers were female, in 2006 (Jan to Dec) this had grown to 52% and the figures for 2007 show that it had held onto this 52% demographic. The Daily Mail enjoys more female than male readers. However, it has not completely gone down the celebrity gossip/magazine style. Undoubtedly it does feature these kinds of stories, but it balances this with news stories and a style proven to attract female readers. According to the National Readership Survey, women care about news - it being their "main reason for purchase" - but they like to be told pretty briskly what has happened, but not what it all may or may not mean. The survey also indicates that British women are turned off by sport and are not too keen on finance.

A quick glance at the Daily Mail after reading this data shows how the Daily Mail has struck the right balance to appeal to the female demographic.

Genevieve Roberts told me during an interview on this issue: "In the UK, the Daily Mail has the highest percentage of female readers, and unsurprisingly, this increases its appeal for advertisers."

The Times
(From July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 42%)

The Times deliberately targets females with its T2 supplement magazine, just as the Guardian (from July 2007 to December 2007: Female = 46%) targets females with its supplement magazine, G2.

These magazins are not aimed solely at women, but The Times' chose to advertise to females when it re-launched the supplement, indicating the importance of female readers to this publication. In a £1m-plus campaign, they targeted a cross-section of women: professionals, housewives and mothers.

Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal Online appears to agree with The Times and the Daily Mail's approach for attracting female readers. In May of this year it launched a new section aimed at a female audience, however, it is also not going down the glossy magazine route. WSJ Online executive editor Alan Murray told Reuters, "Our experience has shown us that there are a lot of business and professional women out there who crave not just fashion and beauty advice, but an intelligent news-oriented community where they can share experiences and swap ideas."

Early indicators point to the Female Interest Approach as having the most success, but only time will tell which strategy works in the long run. The battle lines have been drawn in one of the world's most aggressive newspaper markets, and it is certainly a battle that other editors will watch with interest.

Sources: Newspaper Marketing Agency, Brand Republic, Reuters

In the last year, the Wall Street Journal's web site - one of the few news sites still requiring a paid subscription - has nearly doubled its user-base, with a 94% increase since June 2007. The site now reaches 16.2 million users.

While many sites requiring subscriptions flounder -- just last week, the Irish Times dropped their subscription-based platform, relaunching as a free site, and earlier this year the Atlantic Monthly also dropped their online paywall -- the Wall Street Journal has been uncommonly successful.

The site offers a mix of free and paid content. The Journal's breaking-news alerts and personal-finance, opinion and lifestyle content, as well as videos, blogs, podcasts and other interactive elements are all available free.

Even with a fee - print subscribers pay $49 a year for a web subscription - WSJ Online attracts more than one million subscribers and 10 million monthly unique visitors.

In 2007, WSJ.com generated about $60 million in subscription revenue. To put this in perspective, making up that revenue in ad sales would require WSJ.com to increase traffic by more than 20 million unique monthly visitors.

Sources: Media Week, The Wall Street Journal
 

Robert Thomson, recently appointed managing editor of News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal, replacing Marcus Brauchli who quit in April, announced in a memo key editorial changes to be made to the paper by the beginning of July.

There will be an Enterprise, a National and an International team that will directly report to Thomson, the memo said. Matt Murray will become National Editor, Nikhil Deogum the International Editor and Mike Williams in charge of Enterprise.

All three will be Deputy Managing Editors, sitting "close together" in a "news hub". In this way they will be "streamlining commissioning and editing decisions" and will have " a central role in the production and presentation of copy for the paper and the website."

Mike Miller, who is feature editor, will become Senior Deputy Managing Editor and will be in charge of the paper in case Thomson is unavailable.

Cathy Panagoulias will be a Deputy Managing Editor and "will take a greater role in providing administrative support for bureau chiefs and in hiring decisions."

Jim Pensiero will be Deputy Managing Editor for operations and will be "masterminding" the Journal's "move to Midtown and the introduction of a new publishing system."

"Alix Freedman will have expanded authority as a defender of the paper's ethical and journalistic standards," Thomson said.

Alan Murray will become a Deputy Managing Editor but will also stay as an Executive Editor of the Journal Online, "which will have a more influential role at the heart of the reformed news structure," Thomson wrote.

Dan Hertzberg, Deputy Managing Editor, will be responsible for European and Asian editions and will be in charge of constructing the Journal's "editorial presence and profile in Europe and, in particular, in the U.K."

Reg Chua is appointed Senior Assistant Managing Editor and will be overlooking the Design Team and the evolution of data resources. Thompson announced that a new Director of Design would be chosen soon.

"Most news organizations in the U.S. and around the world are in retreat, but Dow Jones is expanding its reporting resources, rapidly developing its digital content and providing journalism of the highest integrity to an ever larger audience in The Wall Street Journal," said Thomson towards the end of the memo.

UPDATE: According to SmartMoney.com Deputy Managing Editor Laurie Hays is leaving to pursue a different career path after being with the WSJ for 23 years, which Thomson mentioned in a separte memo.

Dow Jones will also create a "central news desk", SmartMoney.com reports, which "will allow for significantly enhanced co-operation between print, web and Newswires journalists, in New York and around the world," said Thomson.

Source: PaidContent.Org, SmartMoney.org through I Want Media

See also:

US: Top Wall Street Journal editor Brauchli resigns

Free dailies had attributed most of their success to the amount of time people spent in public transports, but are now facing the same problems as traditional newspapers: drops in advertising revenue and competition from other freesheets. They are particularly affected by declines in advertising since they rely heavily on advertising for their revenue.

Metro International SA, the biggest publisher of free daily papers around the world, which has a daily circulation of 23 million copies in 23 countries, had their revenue fall 6.1% to €73.4 million, or $116 million, in the first quarter from a year earlier.

"The U.S. market is probably the worst it has been since the 1930s for media companies," Metro chief executive Per Mikael Jensen said.

Metro is now cutting jobs (eliminating 27 jobs in January, leaving a staff of 100 in the U.S.), closing some papers, potentially selling its New York, Boston and Philadelphia papers to another media company, and trying to improve their Metro website, which was launched last month.

Jensen noted that "Metro made some mistakes in the U.S. by not expanding quickly enough into enough cities. As a result, it wasn't big enough to get the attention of major advertisers."

Another daily free paper that has been affected by financial reasons was BostonNOW, which shut down, even though its circulation was on the rise.

Source: Wall Street Journal (photo) through IFRA Executive News Service

The website of French business daily La Tribune has opened the near-totality of its online archives, reported Rue89 and AFP.

The only remaining paid-for articles are those of the current day's print edition and the nine previous ones.

"Globally, we made a little revenue with the sale of our archived content, but relatively little. Since we have a model of a free online site paid by advertising, we hope that the increase in the number of page views will translate into a mechanical increase of ad revenue," said Olivier Provost, Editor-in-Chief of latribune.fr.

La Tribune's move comes as a growing number of newspaper websites move to a free online model (or rather, a model paid by advertisers rather than by users directly) and open up their archives.

Even the monthly publication The Atlantic opened its paywall in January. Last year, nytimes.com removed its TimesSelect paywall, and since then user traffic has soared, further putting into question the viability of the online paid-for model. Yet some papers have gone the other route, such as the Guardian and Observer, or the Wall Street Journal, which has kept its paywall despite initial talks to remove it.

La Tribune was acquired from luxury group LVMH by NextRadio TV chief Alain Weill at the beginning of the year.

Source: AFP Mail

Monthly magazine The Atlantic will take down its online paywall tomorrow, in an effort for the site to become a publication of its own instead of a marketing tool for the print magazine.

The Wall Street Journal is concretely paving its way towards a free online model, by giving users free access to all editorials, op-eds, video interviews and commentary.

FT.com, which was one of the few major newspaper websites to keep content behind a paywall, is taking a first step towards its removal. “Casual” readers will be able to read articles and data up to 30 times a month for free, starting in mid-October.

The New York Times announced the shuttering of its online subscription service, TimesSelect. The obvious question: is this the end of the paid-for online model altogether? How will the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) website, the Web’s largest paid-for subscription website, react? The Editors Weblog collected the insight of media analyst Philip Stone, Ali Rahnema, Corporate Development Director at the Irish Times, and Daniel Bernard, General Manager of WSJ Online.

The New York Times Co. announced that it will end its paid online service TimesSelect, in light of the changing online users landscape, hoping to generate sufficient ad revenue from the increased traffic that will result.

Since its launch, the New York Times online sub, TimesSelect, has been praised by some, criticized by most: even opinion within the walls of the paper was radically mixed. Now, it seems that after almost two years of existence, TimesSelect may be on the way out.

In a June 28 interview with Time magazine, media mogul Rupert Murdoch projected some ideas to expand the Wall Street Journal’s reach, including hiring more reporters and dropping print costs in favor of a free and online edition.

In a move to fully integrate print and online news operations, unify international news coverage and put the feature sections under one editor, Dow Jones & Co. is shuffling editors at the Wall Street Journal. The newly assigned roles are to take effect in July and editors will report to Marcus W. Brauchli, new managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and the one responsible for the changes.

The Politico is the new, multimedia, Capitol Hill, political news title. The Editors Weblog spoke to executive editor Jim Vandehei. He describes Politico’s multi-platform structure, and how it could be a working model for newspapers in the future, which he foresees as being both niche and expertise-backed.

Most newspapers’ online editions give user free access to their content, relying strictly on advertising to generate online revenue. Among the notable exceptions are The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times (FT), but the latter is considering reform.

The American newspaper industry reported declining quarterly results yesterday.  The New York Times Company declined due to low advertising sales and poor results from the Boston Globe.  Despite an overall decrease in revenue, the Tribune Company increased its net income thanks to a fruitful reworking with major shareholders the Chandler family.  The Sun-Times Company is expected to report extremely sharp declines when it publishes its quarterly results the week of November 6.