Newspaper Innovation

The latest readership data from Spain (AIMC/EGM) shows that only sports papers grow. Almost all other papers lose readers (even in 2011 with no championship).

Sports papers Marca (1), As (4), El Mundo Deportivo (10) all gained readers, only Sport (11) went down in readership.

Free papers 20 Minutos (2), Qué! (5) and ADN (7) lost substantially (-7%, -9% and -15%).

Paid paper El País (3) was stable but El Mundo (6) lost 4% of its readers. La Vanguardia (8) gained readers but El Periodico (9) lost.

The organization of the Spanish free press AEPG, has visualized their business on one page: work force, online/offline sales, sort of ads and the sectors that do advertise in free media. The full pdf can be downloaded from the AEPG website.

Reports from WAN-IFRA suggest that the ‘hype’ of free newspaper is over. Data, however, suggest otherwise.

If there was a hype, it was already over in 2009 when worldwide circulation (end-of-year data) dropped with 18% to 34 million. In 2010 total circulation was almost stable (-1%) while in 2011 circulation has increased again with 6%.

Responsible for the growth are countries like Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Peru, Austria, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK. In other countries circulation was stable or even dropping (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia, Russia, USA, Mexico, Chile).

The number of titles dropped in 2010 to 200 and in 2011 again to 190. In 2011 there are free dailies in 56 countries (60 in 2008).

Total circulation of free dailies in 2011 is 36 million, 55% is distributed in Europa, 28% in Asia and 22% in the America’s. WAN-IFRA reports a total free circulation of 24 million – meaning missing some countries (and almost a third of the circulation) as they only research 69 countries instead of the previous 200.

The share of Europe is dropping over the years, as the share of Asia and Latin America is increasing.

Metro International rebranded their Metro Life Panel as Metropolitan Panel – according to Metro: “a global online research panel dedicated to investigate the psychographic attributes, mindset and lifestyle of the Metropolitan target audience globally.”

The panel was launched in 2005 and is present in 14 countries; Canada, Chile, Denmark, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary,  Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and the USA.

The reach of the two best-read paid  newspapers in Poland, Gazeta Wyborcza (Agora) and Fakt (Springer) is just below 14% in the period August 2010 – January 2011. Four years ago this was around 20%. (click to enlarge graph)

On third place follows free daily Metro (Agora) while tabloid Super Express is fourth. (data: Millward Brown SMG/KRC)

German public broadcaster WDR aired a documentary on the history of newspapers last week.

A slideshow is available on their website. Slide number 13 (picture from WDR) concerned the Cologne newspaper war.

In December 1999 Norwegian publisher Schibsted launched their free daily 20 Minuten in Cologne. It was met with great resistance from the local publisher Dumont Schauberg (Express, box in the back of the picture) and national boulevard paper Bild Zeitung from Axel Springer (also in the back of the picture).

Springer started with free daily Köln Extra two days later while Dumont Schauberg launched Kölner Morgen in February. Springer and Dumont Schauberg also took Schibsted to court and begun to lower the advertising rates to almost zero.

In july 2001 Schibsted gave up, both competitors closed a day later.

In three countries in Asia (Hong Kong, Israel & Singapore) the market share of free newspapers (2009) is above 30%. In three more countries (Korea, Malaysia & Australia) the share is above 10%.

The other six countries with free newspapers have a share of less than 10%. (click for bigger version)

China (2.4 million), Korea (2.3 million) and Hong Kong (1.6 million) have the highest circulation of free newspapers.

Five countries on the American continent have market shares of free newspapers of 20% or more, in Chile it is above 30% while in the Dominican Republic almost 50% of the total circulation is free.

The highest circulation of free dailies is in the US (2.4 million) and Canada (1.5 million).

Data are based on 2009 circulation. In 2010 paid circulation dropped somewhat while in Brazil and Canada free circulation increased.

In two countries in Europe – Iceland and Luxembourg – more free than paid newspaper are distributed on weekdays. In Macedonia, Italy and Portugal the share of free newspapers is between 40 and 50%.

In 18 countries in total free dailies have a share of more than 20%. The average share is 27%. Russia is not included in the graph because we don’t know how many paid newspapers are distributed in that country.

Data are from 2009 – as we don’t have complete 2010 data yet. Free newspaper circulation in Europe, however, hardly changed in the last 12 months.

Last year we reported on a Danish research on the content of Danish free and paid newspapers. Based on this research, an article in the Danish journal Journalistica is now available.

“Gratisaviserne som en politisk ressource” (Free Daily Newspapers as a Political Resource) by Aske Kammer compares the political content of three free newspapers (MetroXpress, Nyhedsavisen and Urban) with that of tabloid Ekstra Bladet and quality paper Jyllands Posten.

The last paper contains more political content than the other papers, but the difference between free papers and tabloids was marginal, free daily Nyhedsavisen (closed in 2009) contained more political content than Ekstra Bladet.

Free papers also differed from each other, with Urban having much less politics on the front page for instance.

The article is in Danish, but with “Google translate” most tables ands graphs will make sense to non-Danish readers as well.