Price matters
In the hall where once the Danish paper Politiken was printed, 70 publishers, marketing people and researchers from 17 countries are discussing how pricing models can increase circulation and revenues for newspapers.
Probably the most exciting model is that of the Manchester Evening News, a paper that chose to hand out papers for free in the city centre while still charging for the paper in the other parts. Before they introduced this model MEN distributed a MEN Lite edition. Managing director Mark Rix explained that in the MEN Lite area the paid edition sold 140,000 copies while there were 11,000 MEN Lites handed out – 151,000 in total. Today 95,000 copies are paid for while 78,000 copies are handed out for free, a total of 173,000. Advertsing rates have not changed although the volume increased. Even newsagents are not complaining, they got 7p for paid copies but 3p for free ones, however, they now earn more because of the increased amount of papers.
Michael Phelps, CEO of the Washington and Baltimore Examiner, explained how the company chose it’s first start-from-scratch market. The Examiner chose Baltimore because the area showed a sharp decline in household penetration, only 2 in 10 household read the Baltimore Sun. Furthermore advertising rates were high.
Because the Examiner want to launch in other markets, incumbent publishers now can calculate what cities will be next.
Nina Haas, CEO of free daily OK Graz and OK Karnten explained how this free model was actually based on a paid for daily that the owner Styria Medien launched earlier in Croatia: 24sata. This April 24sata also launched a free afternoon edition with a circulation of 100,000.
No less than three people came to discuss the most exciting market in Europe: Denmark. Three national new free door-to-door delivered free dailies (24timer, Dato, Nyhedavisen) were launched in a market with already two commuter free papers (Urban & MetroXpress). Distribution is still “a mess” or “a disaster” – although they print/distribute 1,250,000 copies – there are only 750,000 readers. Every paper is still losing lots of money. Still, paid papers feel the competition. The latest readership figures (in thousands) for all papers: Urban (557), MetroXpress (548), JP (545), Politiken (505), Ekstra Bladet (464), 24timer (420), BT (420), Berlingske (408), Nyhedsavisen (233), Dato (205), JParhus (48), Centrum Aalborg (42) and Xtra (40).
will be continued.