Newspaper Innovation

Swiss local publisher AZ Medien has been planning a free daily in their area Aargau since the summer of last year. First plans were for last fall but the publisher has been postponing the launch already several times.

A Persoenlich interview today with publisher Peter Wanner suggested that the launch never will take place - at least not in 2008.

Wanner gives three reasons: the economy is not developing in the right direction, except 20 Minuten none of the Swiss free dailies is making a profit and they also have not won the hearts of advertisers and readers.

Wanner is also complaining about advertising rates that seem to be under pressure, although he’s not sure that free dailies - with substantial discounts - are responsible for that.

German magazine publishers think it is a ’scandal’ that the German Post has plans to launch their own free weekly magazine. The new title would distributed in several million copies directly to households and contain national advertising as well.

The magazine publishers’ organization Verbands Deutscher Zeitschriftenverleger (VDZ) will use every ‘political and legal’ way to prevent the launch of this free magazine. Also it is thinking about starting its own delivery service for magazines. (more…)

Jim Pavelich, founder of the Vail Daily in Colorado in 1981, is planning another daily in his hometown (population 4500). The Vail Daily was sold to Swift newspapers in 1993 but Pavelich is not satisfied with the job the paper is doing now.

Pavelich and former Aspen Times editor Dave Price started the Palo Alto Daily News in California, which they sold to Knight Ridder in 2005. Price is now running the SF Daily. (free-daily.com)

Swiss local publisher AZ Medien Gruppe (Mittelland Zeitung) is still undecided about when (or if) they will launch their own free daily. At the end of this month a decision should be made.

This autumn the publisher announced that they would launch their own title in 2007 after the launch of News in their area. This Spring the paper will not be launched anyway. (Persoenlich)

Swiss free evening daily ‘heute’ by Ringier will be taken from the market in June. It will be replaced by a free evening edition of Blick, Ringier’s tabloid flagship. The timing has to do with the Euro2008 football championship that is organized in June in Switzerland and Austria.

The morning edition of Blick will relaunch tomorrow with a new design which will be a magazine and newspaper at the same time while the 56-page paper will also contain an extended separate sports section (probably also connected to Euro2008).

Ringier is positioning Blick as a multi-platform media brand in print, on TV and radio as well. It also it the best-visited news website. Not all will change, Ringier will keep the page-3 girl. (more…)

In the San Francisco Bay area The Public Press made its appearance this week. So far only a website, but according to the masthead it has plans for print, radio and TV as well. And as for print, ‘free ‘ is the most obvious option.

The Public Press is a ‘non-commercial’ news service for the Bay Area, one of the few areas in the USA where many free weeklies and dailies are published. In SF alone there are three dailies: the Examiner, the Daily News and the Daily Star; but also surrounding areas like Berkeley, San Mateo, and Palo Alto have free dailies.

Quoting from their website: “The idea is to put journalism first - operating as a nonprofit organization that prioritizes public service over commerce. One idea is to eliminate advertising altogether, creating a robustly independent specialized vehicle for serious news.”

The last idea is somewhat curious, particularly when it comes to print. Readers in general like ads, they give information, and generate income. And as for commercial influence, that of course depends more on the attitude of the journalists and management than on the efforts by advertisers to influence the news agenda or how things are covered.

The Baltimore Sun will launch a free daily, called ‘b’ on April 14. The paper is aimed at young readers and will be published on weekdays.

Chicago free daily RedEye, by the Chicago Tribune served as a model for the new paper. Both the Tribune and The Sun are owned by private investor Sam Zell.

The new paper plans to print 50,000 copies and wants to expand to 100,000 a day by the end of the year. (Houston Chronicle) (more…)

Vincent Bolloré, owner of the Paris free daily DirectMatin, plans to launch editions of his free daily in Strasbourg, Nice and Toulouse. It is not yet sure whether Le Monde, 30% owner of DirectMatin in Paris, will participate in the new editions.

Bolloré also said that he expects DirectMatin - formerly called Matin Plus - to reach break-even before 2012. (Humanité, JDD) (more…)

Publisher Axel Springer, owner of Europe’s best selling newspaper Bild Zeitung, is thinking of launching a cheap compact Sunday newspaper. The model of broadsheet Die Welt and cheap tabloid Welt Kompakt (also by Springer) will be used for Bild am Sonntag and BamS Kompakt as well. (Persoenlich) (more…)

According to the Brazilian economic magazine Valor Econômico Norwegian publisher Schibsted is looking for partners in Brazil to launch a version of their daily concept 20 Minutes. Partners are needed in Brazil because foreign ownership is limited to 30% in Brazil. Also Destak (by Portuguese publisher Cofina) and Metro that launched in 2006 and 2007 in  São Paulo have Brazilian partners. (Midiablog)

Chinese language free daily MyPaper, launched in June 2006 in Singapore, will re-invent itself in January 2007. The number of pages will be doubled from 24 to 48, while these new pages will contain English language material. The circulation of the paper by Singapore Press Holdings will increase from 180,000 to 250,000.

The new English language part will contain more than just translated stories, als new material for this section will be developed. The Straits Times’ (also SPH) Life section deputy editor Yeow Kai Chai will be responsible for the new section. (The Electric New Paper through INMA newsletter)

With the new approach MyPaper will compete more with the other Singapore free daily Today, by MediaCorp, that is totally in English. With the new circulation MyPaper will have the same number of copies printed as Today.

The Swiss town of Sitten, in Wallis kanton, wants to introduce a policy that is meant to make distribution of free dailies difficult and expensive. Free dailies (now three national in the German speaking part with a fourth obe to be launched next week) can only be distributed in two public places, of which the railway station is one. Any private party who has a rack or box on its property has to pay an extra tax of €300,- each year. (Persoenlich)

It looks like the reinvention of the old newspaper tax that was abolished in Europe in the 19th century and was known as a ‘tax on knowledge‘ that kept newspapers expensive and prevented many citizens from reading newspapers.

Czech publisher Mlada Fronta AS, plans to launch a free daily business newspaper in late November. E15 with subtitle ”15 Minutes for Economy and Business” will target managers and staff of leading companies in Prague. The paper will have an initial circulation of 50,000 copies. It will use (like the Portuguese business daily OJE) a similar concept like London’s City A.M.

Editor-in-chief is Tomas Skrivanek, former deputy editor-in-chief of the Euro business weekly. Three free dailies are now published in Prague: Metro, Metropolitni Expres and 24 hodin. A fifth one Kuryr Praha lasted only for four months in 2006. (Media Details)

The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) is planning a new free daily called Flash. The paper advertised online for an editor who will head a four-person news staff. The Salt Lake Tribune is owned by Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group, a chain of 57 papers in 12 US states. (free-daily.com)

With the launch of News, the 7th Swiss free daily, total free circulation is approaching paid circulation in Switzerland. News will print 334,000 copies which will bring the total free circulation in Switzerland to more than 2.1 million. Paid circulation in 2006 was 2.3 million. In the 2.1 million free also the (yet unaudited) 430,000 copies of .ch are included.

The 5 editions of .ch were launched in September, in the German part of Switzerland also Baslerstab (Basle), and national titles 20 Minuten (5 editions), heute (3 editions, afternoon), and CashDaily (business newspaper) are published. In the western French speaking part 20 minutes (3 editions) is published next to Le Matin Bleu (2 editions).

The new paper wil be published by the owners of Basler Zeitung, Berner Zeitung and Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich). Tages-Anzeiger owner Tamedia is owns 20 minuten. Apart from the editions for Basle, Bern and Zürich also a fourth edition for Mittelland (kantons of Aargau and Solothurn) will be introduced. In these areas the Mittelland Zeitung by AZ Medien is dominant now. The publisher is therefore also thinking about a free paper to counter News.

News will be distributed through 1,500 boxes in public transport and in commuter areas. Circulation of News Basler Zeitung will be 42,000, News Berner Zeitung will print 60,000 while News Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich) will have a circulation of 100,000. News Mittelland will have the highest circulation with 132,000 (Persoenlich).

Although no concrete plans for free newspapers have been disclosed in Germany, publishers and distributors are sharpening their knives. As Deutsche Post is losing the monopoly on postal distribution this year, it thinks seriously about launching a free newspaper or distributing it for others. Already three parties are said to be interested in the plan.

Other German newspapers like Springer (Bild Zeitung), WAZ (Essen) and Reinische Post (Düsseldorf) are active in postal delivery already while also Springer is participating in a postal service: PIN. Both private parties have argued against the introduction of fixed minimum wages for postal workers as this would lead to higher costs for themselves.

Springer even used Bild Zeitung to launch a campaign against the new wage plans - of course without revealing their economic interest in the matter. WAZ is also involved in the PIN project and has uttered similar protests.

With newspapers going into postal service, Deutsche Post would be even more inclined to into free newspapers. (ComCologne)

More about German circulation tomorrow.

According to German business newspaper Handelsblatt, new plans are made for launching a free newspaper in Germany (see also previous post) although the parties involved are not identified. Meanwhile German publishers like Axel Springer (Bild), DuMont Schauberg (Cologne) and WAZ (Essen) announced defense measures.

More of these newspaper-related comics on WhatTheDuck.

According to Reuters LA Times publisher David Hiller thinks about a free daily newspaper,  modeled after the Chicago Tribune spin-off Redeye. Both the Tribune and the LA Times are owned by Tribune Co. Hiller said that “Redeye has added 600,000 readers in an average day to the Tribune’s audience, many of them in the 18-to-34-year-old age group.”

This is probably the result of wishful thinking. Redeye claims a circulation of 150,000 and 600,000 WEEKLY readers, so either Hiller or Reuters is making a mistake. And as for the 18-34’s, the question of course is what is meant by “many”. No independent audited data is available yet to support this claim. Data from Scarborough Research (2005) shows the average age of the RedEye reader as 41.

Danish publisher Berlingske Officin, owned by Mecom (David Montgomery) is thinking about merging the newsrooms of free daily Urban and tabloid B.T. Earlier this year Urban already merged with home delivered free daily Dato. This is probably another sign of the problems the Danish freesheet war has caused. Before the introduction of three home delivered free dailies in the second half of 2006 Metro was making a profit while Urban was moving towards break-even. (Kristine Lowe)