Newspaper Innovation

Singapore online news website TheOnlineCitizen contained an interesting piece on the free dailies in the country last week.

It mainly commented on the number of cover wraps Today and MePaper use. Today leads in that area:

“From 3 to 24 December, 12 out of 16 weekday day issues carried a full-page advert on its front cover. Over the same period of time, My Paper did the same for 7 out of 16 issues.”

The blog post also contained an interesting graph on the percentage of ads in both free papers. Today, in particular, is doing quite well in terms of ad-share with often more than 60% of its space devoted to ads.

Although the authors are quite negative about the number of wraps (”whoring out the front page”) and the high percentage of ads (”where’s the news?”), some commenters think otherwise.

(I think that wraps are good for revenues, but bad for picking up papers. I have the distinct feeling – based on observation only) that free dailies with cover wraps in boxes or racks are picked up less than papers with ‘real’ front pages.)

Right Today’s front page of Monday  11 January (click for enlargement)… with a wrap of course.

In December Google started with a massive advertising campaign for their own Internet browser Chrome.

The ads run on billboards in larger cities but also in paid and free newspapers in at least three countries: the UK, the Netherlands and France.

The free newspapers usually had wraps advertising Chrome.

In the UK Metro contained the first ad in December, in the Netherlands both Metro (see previous post) and Spits had Chrome ads in December and January.

In France 20 Minutes (left, click fro enlargement) had a cover wrap last week.

The Austrian government (national & local) and other bodies funded by the government, hand out millions of Euro’s each year in the form of advertising contracts. This is not that special in itself, as all governments do this, and most treat media on an equal basis. But in Austria some newspapers seem to be more equal than others.

Paid market leader Kronen Zeitung started the discussion by accusing Austrian Railways of sponsoring Kronen’s paid/free competitor Österreich. In 2009 alone the paper got ads worth €900.000.

Österreich struck back and said Kronen received more than €100 million in the last years, while free daily Heute (connected to Kronen through family ties) received a further €30 million.

An APA research made it that Kronen, Österreich and Heute get much more than non-Viennese boulevard newspapers. Styria (Graz) CEO Horst Pirker, also chairman of the Austrian publishers, even talks about a system that “looks like” corruption.

Local publishers have issued a joint complaint because this ‘unequal’ treatment.

Biggest spenders are the national government, some state departments, Austrian Rail, Vienna local transport, the Vienna airport, local Vienna government, and the ‘landes’ (provincial) government.

The Austrian Rail ads in Heute and Österreich, however, are mostly part of the barter contract on distribution in trains.

In January 2009 Metro International closed down their operation in Spain after almost 8 years. Now, the publisher closed a deal with its former main competitor 20 Minutos (Schibsted) for pan-European advertising.

Metro already had a contract with the Belgium Metro (Concentra group) since 2006, the existing deal with Metro UK (Associated Newspapers) is upgraded to an exclusive contract to sell international advertising.

With partners, Metro claims a circulation of 10.3 million and a readership of 24 million. In Europe the combinations says it reaches “19.0 million urbanites in 146 major European cities in 15 European countries”. (Metro Press release)

(Click on the picture for better view.)

Two of the major publishing groups in The San Francisco Bay area, Philip Anschulz’ Clarity Media and Dean Singleton’s MediaNews are combining their powers and offering joint advertising packages to businesses.

Clarity Media owns free daily The San Francisco Examiner while NewsMedia owns, among other papers (San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Time, the Oakland Tribune), the free Daily News.

The combination has now a larger circulation than the San Francisco Chronicle. (MediaBistro)

A swine flu outbreak might be good news for Swiss free evening daily Blick am Abend. Every article about the flu is accompanied with an ad (Abwehr Stärken!) from bio-drink Aktifit.

So far 8 articles, all but one with the ad, have been placed in paid paper Blick and Blick am Abend.

The policy led to discussions in Switzerland about the ethical implications of the deal. Most of all because it could mean that the decision to write about the flu can be profitable, so the sales department could put some pressure on the editorial staff (which was denied by a spokesperson from the publisher).

Mixing commercial and editorial content is also not in line with the Code of Conduct of Swiss newspapers. (Basler Zeitung)

According to PRNoticias, Spanish newspapers lost 20% of ad revenue in 2008 compared to 2007. Market leader 20 Minutos lost more than average with 28% (down from 43 to 31 million).

Although free papers in Spain have the highest circulation, their ad-share is relatively low. The four national free papers are on positions 7 to 10 in the top 20. Their share of newspaper advertising in total is only 9%. For a part, however, this can be attributed to the fact that the frees don’t publish in weekends when advertising is usually high.

The paper with the highest income (38 million) and a lowest loss (-7%) is Metro, a title that closed down in the beginning of 2009. ADN lost only 4% while Qué! was down 25%. The ad revenue of all four papers was around 40 million each in 2007 and between 31 and 38 million in 2008.

Not clear, however, is whether these are “net real revenues” data or the official rates data.

The Swedish edition of Metro has introduced an advertising package together with paid daily Svenska Dagbladet in Stockholm whereby almost 800,000 readers are reached by a Sunday ad in SvD and a Tuesday ad in Metro.

Schibsted, the publisher of Svenska Dagbladet, has a minority stake in Metro Sweden. (Resumé)

Per Mikael Jensen, CEO of Metro International, told the Danish website MediaWatch that he sees the market for his newspaper improve. Advertising was down 18% in the beginning of this year, but the level now is around 11% according to Jensen. Since January, there have been improvements every month.

Metro raised advertising rates with 50% according to Jensen.