Newspaper Innovation

At the end of Feruary, the RCS Mediagroup (Corriere della Sera) will close down its free daily – or “freepress” in Italian – City. The economic situation and the drop in advertising are said to be responsible for the closure.

The editioral staff is protesting agianst the closure and has ‘occupied‘ the website of the paper.

City was launched in 2001 in Rome and Milan, and later started local editions in Florence, Bologna, Bari, Naples (2002), Genua, Turin and Verona (2005).

Total circulation of City is 850,000 – making it the largest Italian free daily (together with Metro) after Leggo concentrated its footprint to Rome and Milan. 1.8 million people read City on an average day.

The closure will lower Italian free newspaper circulation to just over 2 million.

In 2008 circulation still was 4.6 million, with 9 different titles published. Since then 24minuti (2009), E Polis (2010) and some local papers closed down while Leggo cut circulation.

Looking at the graph below, the number of closed down free dailies in 2011 seems impressive. In particular the number of closed down editions (76) is much higher than in 2010 (39). The number of titles closed down (10), however, is lower than in 2010 (17).

In fact, three European titles are responsible for almost all of these editions closed: Adevarul de Seara, ADN and Leggo.

Adevarul de Seara, a Romanian free daily with no less than 39 editions, launched between 2008 and 2010 closed down wihin three years, some editions did not even last one year.

ADN, the third national free daily in Spain closed with 9 editions after 5 years of making losses.

Leggo, the leading Italian free daily closed all but the Rome and Milan editions (10 in total) in order to cut costs.

Other closures in 2011 concern Macedonia (2 papers), and 5 local papers in US, Canada and Mexico.

Worldwide circulation of free dailies increased in 2011, because of new launches and increases circulation of other titels.

With the closure of Urban, Berlingske’s (Mecom) free daily in Denmark, the number of free dailies in the country is down to two.Circulation is now 360,000.

Only 5 years ago there were 11 free dailies in Denmark with a total circulation of more than 2 million.

With the closure of Urban, 87 people will lose their job, although Berlingske claims it will be relaunched a digital platform under the same brand.

Berlingske CEO Lisbeth Knudsen says in a press release (via MediaWatch) that the economic crises and the recession force Berlingske to cost savings, and suggests that the closure is also part of the digital and mobile transition strategy of the company that aims for consolidation and acquisitions in the future.

Kundsen suggest that the closure is expansion in disguise: “We have therefore decided to rethink the Urban brand and change it to a whole new and exciting media concept with new partnerships, where digital will play the main role.”

This is obviously crap. Urban has been losing money during the last years, saw fierce competition from the two Metro papers MetroXpress and 24timer and also ‘forgot’ to apply for press subsidies in the past.

Mecom as a whole is losing big money while the Danish part of the company also lost money in the first 6 months of 2011 – in fact only the Netherlands and Norway (about to be sold) showed a profit.

Urban started in September 2001, three weeks after the launch of MetroXpress in Denmark as a defensive move of the publishers of Berlingske and tabloid BT. The first four years showed promising results but after the freesheet-craze hit the country in 2006 (5 national titles and 4 local ones), the paper never recovered.

Metro closed a deal with competitor JP/Politiken, who got 24.5% of the company and handed over their free daily 24Timer. Urban brought back the 7 editions to only 2 and lowered circulation from 240,000 in 2006 to 200,000 in 2011. Readership dropped from more than 600,000 in 2006 to 233,000 in 2011. (See also Aske Kammer’s blog for an analysis.)

The last issue of Urban will be published tomorrow.

How total circulation in Denmark changed can be seen in the graph below (click for enlargement).

The last issue of free Spanish daily ADN will be published this Friday. After a little more than 5 years the paper, operated by Planeta and local publishers, has closed down. (El Mundo)

ADN published editions in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Málaga, Mallorca, Sevilla, Zaragoza and Lleida with a total circulation of 550,000.

Earlier (2008 and 2009) eight editions of the papers were closed. One year after the launch ADN had a circulation of almost one million and published two dozen editions.

After Metro (2009) ADN is the second national free daily that closed down in Spain. Only 20 Minutos (700,000 copies, 15 editions) and Qué! (600,000 copies, 10 editions) remain.

Also a dozen local free dailies are published in Spain. Total circulation is now around 1.6 million. In 2006 this was 5 million.

Around 60 people will lose their job because of the closure.

Leggo, the Italian free daily with the highest circulation (one million copies) will be restructured in November. 13 of the 15 editions will be closed down, only the Rome and Milan editions will be continued. 12 people will lose their job in the process.

Both remaining editions, however, will have more pages (48 compared to 24 now) while also the website will be enhanced. The new Leggo will have special inserts on topics like gaming, health and travel and will have a new design as well. (ilsolo24Ore)

Between 2005 and 2008 all three Baltic countries had a free newspaper, all of them with several editions and reaching market shares of more than a quarter of the total newspaper market.

Two of them were owned by Norwegian publisher Schibsted, one by Swedish company Bonnier, and none off them is around in 2011 – although one title is published three days a week and one other two times.

Latvian free daily 5Min was launched in August 2005 by Swedish-owned paid paper Diena (Bonnier). The paper was published in Latvian and Russian. In 2009 Bonnier sold Diena and 5Min to Guernsey-based investors Jonathan and David Rowland.

Latvian businessman Viesturs Koziols acquired a 51% stake in the company in 2010. 5Min was closed in June 2010, although according to the publisher, it was  ”a temporary decision” –  a relaunch would be possible when the economy recovers.

In September 2005, free daily 15min started in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, editions for Kaunas and Kleipeda were added a year later.

Norwegian publisher Schibsted bought the paper in 2006, first as a majority shareholder, in 2008 it acquired 100% of the company. In 2009 the paper reduced distribution to three days a week.

In Estonia, free daily Linnaleht was launched in capital Talinn in December 2005, in both a Estonia and Russian edition. The paper was jointly owned by by the Eesti Meedia (Schibsted) and Ekspress Groups, publishers of paid dailies Postimees and Eesti Päevaleht.

In 2007 a Tartu edition was added while Pärnu got a weekly edition in the same year. In December 2008 the daily paper was replaced by a semi-weekly paper.

Thanks to the team that compiled the Latvia entry of European Media Landscapes.

The Dallas Morning News will end the publication of their free weekly Quick on August 4.

In 2003 Quick was launched as a free daily, in 2008 it was converted to a weekly and focused on entertainment mainly.

The  Dallas Morning News (Belo) still publishes door-to-door free daily Briefing from Wednesday to Saturday.

In the beginning on July, the two free Macedonian free newspapers Shpic and Koha were closed down, together with paid newspaper Vreme. TV-station A1, also belonging to the same media group – cut back in programming.

Yesterday, July 18, the court has been asked to start a bankruptcy procedure against A1. The owner of the TV-station and both newspapers, Velija Ramkovski, was arrested in December 2010, being accused of tax evasion and financial irregularities.

Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organization (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), has expressed concerns over the latest media developments in Macedonia because they think they might be politically motivated.

The papers had to closed down because the tax office said they were behind 21 million in taxes. After the tax office move, the papers could no longer pay wages. Albanian language paper Koha, however, still publishes a pdf on the website. The website of Shpic is also still alive. (novinite.com)

Shpic was launched in 2006 and claimed a circulation of 125,000. Koha started in 2007.

One of the most ambitious free papers in the world – Romanian Adevarul de Seara – closed down today.

All 39 editions of the free evening paper (total circulation 500,000) will be converted to paid weeklies, called ADS. The weeklies will be published on Thursdays and have between 24 and 32 pages. The price will be 0.8 to 1.4 Lei (between 0.25 and 0.35 Euro).

Adevarul de Seara was launched as a free evening sister paper of paid paper Adevarul in October 2008 in Bucharest and six other major markets in Romania. Later that year seven markets were added while the paper expanded to 18 more cities in 2009 and another seven in 2010.

Both Adevarul and Adevarul de Seara are owned by Dinu Patriciu, the richest Romanian with a fortune estimated at €2.5 billion. Patriciu has also ties with the National Liberal Party, between 1990 and 2003 he served as a member of parliament for the party.

Adevarul also publishes editions for Romanians in Spain and Italy while the group owns tabloid papers Click! and Blik. The Romanian edition of Forbes is also published by the company.

The most likely reason for the closure are high costs and low revenues. In Adevarul, Peter L. Imre, general manager of the Adevarul Holding, however, said that  ”Adevarul de Seara has reached the point where you have to take a step forward. I do not believe in free products.”

After almost 9 years, Bonnier’s free paper Stockholm City will close down this summer. The paper was launched in October 2002 as a – rather late – answer to Metro, the free daily that started in 1995 in the Swedish capital.

In 2008, after years of losses (estimated at almost €70 million) the paper went to a three-days-a-week schedule, and later to twice-a-week.

A Göteborg edition was launched in 2006 and closed a year later. The Malmö edition, also started in 2006, however, is still published.

Also smaller City editions in Helsingborg (2008), Landskrona (2008) and Lund (2011) are still alive. Combined circulation is around 25,000.

The last addition was City Kristianstad that launched in the end of April. All remaining editions of City are published five days a week.