Newspaper Innovation

Cable opeartor Cablevision acquired Tribune’s New York paper Newsday and free daily amNewYork. The company paid $650m for the paper, more than the $580m Murdoch’s Newscorp was willing to pay.

Reactions (E&P) from the market are mixed because possible synergies of the new group are still uncertain.

Austrian media website Medianet ran a story last week on Graz publisher Styria. The company publishes paid dailies Kleine Zeitung and Die Presse in the home market, but is also operating in the Eastern-European markets Croatia and Slovenia.

German-language publishers have ‘invaded’ Eastern Europe since the nineties. The most important players being WAZ and Springer from Germany and Swiss publisher Ringier. Apart from that, also Styria, Vorarlberger Nachrichten (Austria), Rheinische Post, Passauer Neue Presse (Germany), and Edipresse (Switzerland) are active in Eastern Europe.

Styria’s main non-Austrian activities are in Croatia and Slovenia were they publish paid and free dailies. Almost a quarter of Styria’s revenues is now coming from these international operations. (more…)

In their Q1 2008 results Schibsted mentions “Strong development for 20 Minutes in France. A readership record but challenging advertising market in Spain.”

These remarks are in line with Metro’s observation in Spain were apparently a war on advertising rates is going on with Metro, ADN and Qué! fighting for the no. 2 position.

Swedish free daily Punkt.se is still losing money: NOK. 37m (€4.7m) in Q1 2008.

After Murdoch’s News Corp. (New York Post, Wall Street Journal, local TV) and Mortimer Zuckerman (New York Daily News) (see previous), also Long Island firm Cablevision will be bidding for NY newspaper Newsday. In this sale free daily amNewYork is included.

Cablevision, owned by the Dolan family, is offering $650m - $70m more than both other bidders - for the Tribune owned company, although the sale would also include some estate and other assets. Cablevision operates cable, telecommunications and Internet businesses on Long Island, including cable and online news service News 12. (Chicago Tribune)

While Newsday is losing money, which all bidders see reduced because of synergy effects with their own operations, amNewYork is making a profit.

The bid of Rupert Murdoch’s News International for Newsday (including free daily amNewYork) from the Tribune Company is matched by Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News.

Although the bid is also $580m, Zuckerman’s offer is expected to lead to less public resistance. A Murdoch takeover would also lead to more problems with antitrust legislation because of combined print/TV ownership. (ChainLinks)

Swiss publisher Tamedia has seen its revenue rise in 2007, mainly thanks to its newspaper business. The newspaper division had a total revenue of CHf 348m (€440m), a rise of 16%.

Tamedia publishes paid papers Tages Anzeiger (Zurich) and Berner Zeitung. Free daily 20 Minuten (20 Minutes in the French speaking part of Switzerland) was responsible for an important part of the revenues.

In 2007 Tamedia launched free dailies News in Switzerland and L’Essentiel in Luxembourg. (Persoenlich)

Sales of Metro International decreased in Q1 2008 compared to the same quarter in 2007, the company reported today. The operating loss of €5.6m, however, was less that the loss in 2007 (€8.8m).

Spain, Denmark and the US were singled out by CEO Per Mikael Jensen as having ‘difficult market conditions’. Spain and the US always were difficult, but the Danish operation apparently is feeling also the increased competition although it is still profitable. (more…)

Three major Canadian newspaper groups: Torstar, Sun Media and Transcontinental have left the Canadian Audit Bureau of Circulations ABC circulation auditing to join the Canadian Circulations Audit Board (CCAB).

The publishers said they made the move so all their titles were audited by one auditor, because CCAB is tracking also the smaller community papers from the same publishers. The real reason, however, might be that CCAB has less strict rules on bulk and unpaid circulation. (more…)

Monday morning 21 April at 8.00 (CET) Metro International will present their Q1 results for 2008. At 10.00 there will be a conference call that can be listened to directly or later as streaming audio. More information on the webcast at www.metro.lu.

The struggle for the money-losing Israeli daily Ma’ariv has entered a new phase according to the Jerusalem Post. Sheldon Adelson, owner of free daily Israel Today, offered a rather low price for the paper - $50m - and also demanding a ‘clean slate’, meaning that only part of the staff can remain on the paper.

According to the JP: “The significance of Adelson’s “clean slate” demand, it is speculated, is that he may wish to acquire Ma’ariv less with the idea of maintaining it, and more to use it as a platform for Israel Today.”

At the same time, the Ma’ariv Holding is also still negotiating with  competitor Ha’aretz about ‘cooperation’.

According to the 2007 results of publisher PCM, their free daily DAG - the fourth title in the Netherlands - lost €10 million in 2007 and will lose again 10 million this year. The publisher hopes that DAG will make a profit in 2009.

Free daily De Pers lost even more in the launching year 2007: €20 million, while publisher Cornelis van den Berg said to Belgian newspaper De Morgen that another loss of €10m is expected for 2008. In 2009 the paper expects to lose ‘only’ €5m. Profits are not expected before year 4 or 5.

Both News International, owner of free daily thelondonpaper, and Associated Newspapers (London Lite) are participating in a ‘phoney’ expansion was in the UK. Both companies are trademarking their brands and registering Internet domain name in several areas.

Associated trademarked the ‘Lite’ name for Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Scotland and Yorkshire. (more…)

The talks between Sheldon Adelson (owenr of free daily Israel Today) and the owner of paid paper Ma’ariv (see previous post) are moving towards a next phase.

To soften up Ma’ariv owner Ofer Nimrodi, Adelson decided to postpone the launch of a weekend edition of Israel Today that was planned for June. The paper also plans to expand the page count to 48 within the next weeks. (Globes)

US casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson is - again - trying to buy Israeli paid daily Ma’ariv. Adelson, owner of Israeli free daily Israel Today, and earlier of the now-defunct freesheet Israeli, already tried to buy the paper twice in the last years.

After his first attempts failed two years ago he invested in Israeli, but ended up in court with his co-owner Shlomo Ben-Zvi. Israeli was closed down at the end of 2007. On the remains the free daily 24 Minutes (by tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth) was erected (see previous post). (more…)

French media tycoon Vincent Bolloré’s free dailies Matin Plus and Direct Soir will be exclusively distributed  in Paris metro’s. The estimated costs for the contract is 500,000 to 1 million Euro’s according to French media website Marianne2.

E.W. Scripps Company appointed Javier J. Aldape, a former journalist, and publisher as their new vice president of niche products for the newspaper division.

Aldape earlier worked for Spanish language free dailies Hoy in Los Angeles and was publisher of the daily Spanish-language publication, Diario La Estrella in Dallas/Fort Worth - in 2007 the daily moved to a twice-a-week publication. (CNN Money)

E.W. Scripps has already some interest in local free dailies in Colorado and Florida.

Austrian media website Medianet contains an interview with WAZ-manager Andreas Rudas. As a German publisher not very fond of free dailies and because of that, working together with other German publishers to keep free dailies from the German market.

WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, based in Essen) is however active in many Eastern European and Asian markets with different features. In the past WAZ published a free daily in Austria, together with market leader Kronen Zeitung. It ended in a dispute over the continuation of U-Express. The relation with Kronen Zeitung is still not very good: “No peace but we don’t wage war.”

In Croatia WAZ publishes “very successfully” a Metro franchise. WAZ is also participating in a free daily in Macedonia while it threatened to launch one in Bulgaria when an entrepreneur wanted to start a free daily.

ImpreMedia, publisher of seven Spanish language newspapers in US is launching a combined news website for all their newspapers next month. Free daily Hoy in New York is one of ImpreMedia’s newspapers. It was acquired from the Tribune group in 2007. Impredia also publishes magazines for the Spanish speaking population.

Belgian publisher Roularta acquired the shares of free weekly Het Gouden Blad, published in Waregem and Deinze. Earlier the publisher also bought Effect, published in Oudenaarde en Ronse.

Roularta is also publisher of free weeklies De Streekkrant / De Weekkrant (circulation 3.5 million), De Zondag and city magazine Steps. All acquisitions are part of the project Free Press 2008 of the Roularta Media Group. (De Tijd)

Roularta also participated in free daily Metro when it was launched in 2000 but sold its shares later.

German website kress.de reported that Swiss publisher Ringier is thinking about ending the operations in the Ukraine. This would mean that tabloid Blik - that just went for the new strategy of distributing for free on Mondays (see previous post) - is closing down. The company declined to comment. (Persoenlich)