Newspaper Innovation

Danish free dailies MetroXpress and 24timer, both majority owned by Metro International, offer joint advertising in their papers, according to an ad in 24timer (right).

In total they reach one million readers in Denmark. According to the last readership survey (December 2008) 24timer had 446,000 readers and MetroXpress 561,000.

The circulation of 24timer, however, is expected to go down. The Odense edition was closed in December 2008 while the Aalborg edition is replaced with a general ‘West’ edition. The Copenhagen edition is now called ‘East’. Apart from that also an Arhus edition is published.

The differences between the editions, however, are minimal or non-existent. Some ads are only in one or two versions, but there is no local content in the three editions as far as I could see (check the live-paper version).

Free daily Metro (Concentra group) will publish a special Xmas magazine on Friday December 12.

The circulation of the magazine - that is published in different Dutch and French language editions - will be 150,000.

Advertisers are Inno, Bernard Massard, Planet Parfum, Coty, Thalys, Ethias, Nikon, Sony Ericsson, Rombouts, Godiva, Ubisoft, Canon, Hedgren, Connections and Electronic Partner.

The Xmas Magazine is available from 15:00 on in the Metro boxes in all major train and subway stations.

Norwegian publisher Schibsted has launched the schibstedadvertising.com website where all brands of the publisher are offered to national and international advertisers.

Schibsted is present in 22 countries; on the website so far seven European markets are presented: Norway, Sweden, Russia, Lithuania, Spain, France and Estonia. In France and Spain Schibsted publishes free daily 20 Minutes, in Lithuania free daily 15min and in Russia the free weekly Moi Rayon.

The advertising sales teams of paid Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza and its free daily Metro were chosen the best ad sales departments of Polish dailies by the weekly Media&Marketing Polska.

The advertising departments of Agora’s dailies were praised for the transparent cooperation rules, professional approach and good atmosphere of cooperation.

Last year the ad departments of Metro and Gazeta Wyborcza were ranked second and third. (Agora via Publictas)

Good news is hard to find - these days you mostly get the other kind. But in Luxembourg advertisers seem to think that the crisis will actually benefit (free) newspapers.

There are two free dailies published in Luxembourg: L’Essentiel and Point24. The first readership survey by TNS ILRES (October 2007 - May 2008) shows that the papers together have 140,000 readers.

Paid paper Luxemburger Wort had 176,000 readers while Das Tageblatt had 56,000 readers.

Ghislain Ludwig, director of advertising agency Brain & More says in Luxemburger Wort:

2008 was a good year for the agencies in Luxembourg. Notwithstanding the financial crisis the banks have increased their advertising as far as I know. [In a crisis] companies should advertise even more to stimulate demand for products.

Marc Binsfeld (Binsfeld Communication) thinks free dailies profit from the shift to product advertising:

Free dailies reach a new audience: young commuters. Free papers can reach this group very well with promotional campaigns.

The revelation by Spits editor Bart Brouwers last Wednesday about his free newspaper offering commercial publicity in editorial content in the paper (see previous post) caused some turmoil in the media in the Netherlands.

Some commenters praise his honesty and understanding of the economic difficulties, others think he is being on a very slippery slope downwards.

As was reported, also free daily De Pers had experiences with selling editorial space.

Today the paper added an other chapter. The paper had a full wrap around it paid by the Dutch government (left, click for bigger picture) about its campaign “working for the government”. Happy civil servants were talking on the editorial look-alike wrap about their great jobs.

But it’s advertising… so who cares?

The surprise came on page 3, the real front page (right, click for bigger picture).

The leading picture had the caption “working for the government” while the leading article was: “The civil servant is cool again”.

Helping the advertiser on the front page or just coincidence?

(the pdf of the paper can be downloaded from www.depers.nl)

Normally I am a great fan of the ’skip intro’ option when entering flashy websites. It takes time and memory and often does not look that great.

I would advise, however, to watch the whole scene at the Dawn till Dusk website by Schibsted (Aftenbladet) and Metro International. Also the movies at the site itself are worthwhile.

The new advertising combination (4.2 million daily readers, 60% of population), a ‘Monster’, is scaring the advertising agencies in the movie clips. I don’t know what looks like (Lord of the Rings? Frankenstein? Blair Witch Project?), but it sure does not look like the ordinary newspaper rate card.

The Dutch Press Fund (Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers) will include free dailies in their support policy. News media can apply for funds for special projects or research. Until now only paid publications could apply.

Next year the Fund will have €1m for support, from 2010 on this will be €2.3m a year. Minister Plasterk, responsible for media, will not take any general measures, like lowering taxes, which was asked for by publishers and the journalists union NVJ.

The minister is worried about commercial influences on the media, and will talk with the press how to deal with this on a voluntary basis. (VillaMedia)

In terms of commercial influences and independent reporting, however, free newspapers have a rather ’soft’ policy. Metro will have its ‘Blunt day’ this Monday (see previous post), the result of a marketing-deal with Warner Music, who pays for the one-day editor in chief.

Dutch free daily Spits has its TV-critic sponsored. Jan Dijkgraaf, former editor in chief of Metro, is now employed by Spits to write about TV while he is also available for marketing purposes.

What this means can be seen here: Dijkgraaf with thumbs-up dressed up with a Logitech t-shirt (click on pic for bigger Dijkgraaf).

Two of the three free dailies in Amsterdam this morning - Metro and Spits - had an advertising wrap: front and back space containing an ad, the ‘real’ paper beginning on page 3.

The Metro one was far more appealing: just one big picture wanting you to know more about it: “what’s this black sheep doing there?” The ad was from telecom and internet operator Tele2, with the catch line on page 2: “born to be cheap.” (Both other free papers contained a half-page ad of Tele2.)

In the ad the history of Tele2 was explained: founded in 1993 in Sweden by Jan Stenbeck who broke the telecom monopoly at that time.

Not mentioned, but important in this respect, is that Stenbeck also was the one who provided Metro Sweden with the funds to launch, and is in that way responsible for the birth of free newspapers. The Stenbeck family still controls the majority of the Metro International shares. (more…)

Newspaper advertising revenue in Finland dropped by nearly 10% in September (probably compared to 2007). Advertising in free newspapers (weeklies and dailies) fell by 5%.

Advertisers say they expect newspaper advertising to fall by 20 percent next year. A barometer by advertisers’ associations points to advertisers tapping into new channels at the cost of newspapers. (YLE news via EJC Media News)