Money
Dutch and Belgium newspaper marketing people are getting together this Friday and Saturday to talk about Money (how to increase revenues for newspapers). Dutch data on newspaper prices are interesting. Since 1997 prices have increased every year with a minimum of 1.2% (2006) and a maximum of 6.5% (2001). Average increase has been 3.25%. When inflation is taken into account, cover prices have increased with 9% in the last ten years.Not only Dutch newspaper prices have risen. Also in the UK and the US publishers have ’solved’ the problem of dropping circulation with rising the cover price. In Sweden Aftonbladet expects revenues to rise with SEK 80 million (almost €9m) after a cover price rise of more than 10%.
Rising cover prices might be a good idea in the short run – newspapers are an inelastic good, meaning that any price increase will bring in more revenues because only few readers will stop buying the paper. In countries with already high prices (Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland) the strategy might not be very smart in the long run. Most of all because there are many free alternatives. Denmark, the country with the highest newspaper price in the world, already saw a substantial decline in paid circulation.