Experiencing newspapers
Newspapers are after radio the most valued medium by Dutch media users, but when paid and free newspapers are not taken together, paid newspapers are the most valued while free newspapers are much less liked.
Dutch newspaper marketing organization Cebuco published already in November a report on different experiences of free and paid newspapers in the Netherlands. Background is that (paid) newspapers might see circulation and readership go down but that they are still very much valued by their readers.
Keyword in the research is ‘engagement’ which expresses the idea that readers are attached to different media for different reasons. Readers express engagement when they call a particular medium their ‘favorite’, when they are ‘close’ to them, when they ‘miss’ it when they are not there, when no other medium can replace it. Results are based on a survey with 1500 people participating.
The summary of the research can be downloaded from the Cebuco site. The full reseach, however, explains something of the rather big difference between free and paid newspapers.
Both media seem to fulfill rather different functions for readers. While paid papers are rated much higher on ‘giving information’ and readers identify themselves more with paid papers which are also much more used to talk about, free dailies score better on ‘passing the time’. On items like ‘excitement’, ‘makes me curious’ and ‘originality’ both forms of newspapers scored alike.
Advertising in newspapers is still very valued, when asked about ‘new information’ and ‘useful information’ newspapers outranked all other media. When asked whether they ‘believed’ what was in the ads, newspapers ranked third, just after free weeklies and magazines.
People were also asked what they thought about newspaper websites. They were seen as more recent, more informative and more interesting than printed papers. The printed paper, however, was seen as a better read, more relaxing to read and more reliable.