Austria: one down again
Austrian free daily Neue Express, launched in June 2006 in Innsbruck closed down in October. The paper was published by Moser Holding, publisher of paid papers Tiroler Tageszeitung and Neue Zeitung für Tirol. The paper had a circulation of 10,000. (The website suggests that the paper is still published.)
Neue Express is already the fourth closure in Austria in 2007. Earlier both editions of OK (Graz and Kärnten) by Styria and the Graz edition of Heute were closed down. Circulation in Austria dropped from 830,000 halfway 2007 to 670,000 at the end of last year.
Two national titles remain: Heute with editions in Vienna, NiederOstereich (St. Pölten) and Linz and Österreich with a mixed paid/free model and editions in Vienna and Oberösterreich (Linz, Wels, Steyr).
In the Linz area both Österreich and Heute compete with Oberösterreichs Neue from local publisher Wimmer Verlag, also publisher of leading local paid paper Oberösterreiche Nachrichten. This paper has 102,000 readers according to the publisher, with 47% of the readers under 29 years and 80% under 49.
Free dailies in Austria also compete with the popular free weeklies that are published in almost any community. Styria and Moser, closing their free dailies in 2007, are planning to incorporate their free weekly newspaper activities in “Regionalmedien Austria AG”. Both publishers own free weeklies in several parts of Austria.