Newspaper Innovation

Metro Denmark is moving back from Sweden to its home country for printing. Since 2009, 120,000 copies of Metro Denmark were printed in Malmö because printing facilities in Copenhagen were scarce.

After free daily Nyhedsavisen closed down and Urban cut back circulation, there is more room for printing in Denmark again. Dansk Avis Tryk (Danish Newspaper Press), the former printer of Nyhedsavisen, will be printing both Metro’s Danish titles (24timer and MetroXpress). (MediaWatch)

Polish publisher Agora today published a German edition of their Polish free daily Metro in Berlin.

The paper has a circulation of 30,000 and is meant to promote tourism to Poland and to give Polish advertisers the opportunity to reach potential customers unavailable to them in other ways.

Thus edition is already the third German publication, in September 2009 and June 2010 Agora also published German editions.

The first edition was awarded with the first prize in the “Marketing Solutions for Advertising Clients” category at the INMA Awards 2010 competition (see previous post).

Vienna blogger Helge Fahrnberger found out that both free newspapers in his home town took the concept ‘free’ to its limits when they took a picture from his blog without any attribution.

Fahrnberger took a picture (below, click for bigger version) of a billboard of the Austrian party FPÖ, and commented on the text that seemed to be quite similar to that of a Nazi-poster from 1938. He also posted the original 1938 poster on his blog on August 14.

On his blog Fahrberg has a disclaimer, stating that “Die Verwendung, auch im kommerziellen Umfeld, ist mit Namensnennung und Link erlaubt,” meaning that everyone can use it, but only with the correct source mentioned and with a link to the KOBUK! blog.

Two days later, Austrian quality paper Der Standard wrote about the issue, using Fahrnberger’s photo and indeed mentioned him as he one who started the discussion and took the picture.

Free daily Österreich wrote about it one day later, also using the picture, but this time without any source, and on August 20 the paper used the picture again without any credits.

Also free daily Heute used the picture two times, on August 17 and on August 20, once crediting their own photographer Sabine Hertel.

Both the French and the Spanish 20 Minutes/Minutos free dailies (Schibsted) showed a small profit (EBITA, €1.6m) in the second quarter of 2010.

For the first 6 months of 2010 the profit (EBITA) was €0.4m. In the same period in 2009 the paper lost €3.3m.

Also both online operations showed a small profit in Q2.

2009 was a very bad year for free newspapers – that is for the ones that closed down or suffered because of competition and the economy. In 2010, the worst seems to be behind us.

In 2007 30 titles (52 editions) closed down, a year later 33 free dailies closed (77 editions) while in 2009 no less than 42 titles (97 editions) were terminated. In the first 8 months of 2010, however, only 3 titles (4 editions) were closed. (Click on the graph for a better view.)

The development of circulation, titles and countries with free newspapers (1995-2010) was covered in a previous post.

The newsletter is not dead, I was just busy. In issue 56 (covering May/August):

• 15 years of free dailies, the decline stopped in 2010
• Brazil: Metro Campinas launch
• plans for France & UK
• closures in Portugal, Venezuela, Mexico
• South-African free daily goes paid
• top 10 circulation free dailies
• Israel Today beat Yediot in readership
• Vienna city sponsors free dailies
• Italian papers strike
• Metro UK sues faker
• third anti-freesheet bill proposed in Israel
• Austria: Heute & Kronen fasten families ties
• Metro International expects profits for 2010
• Metro Greece sold
• and much more….

the last issue can be downloaded from the newsletters page.

Free daily El Nuveo Siglio, published in Guadalajara (México), was recently closed down. It remains, however, as a news website.

The title was founded in 2000 as a weekly paper, in 2004 it moved to a daily publication, also published on weekend days.

Already in September 2009, free El Diario de Caracas (Venezuela) closed down.

El Diario de Caracas started in 1979 as a paid tabloid paper. In 1995 it was closed down after a financial crisis. In 2005 Consorcio TP brought the paper back to life as a free daily.

The paper had a circulation of 50,000 and was published seven days a week.

Two free dailies remain in Venezuela: Primera Hora by paid paper El Nacional and Cuidad CCS, a government sponsored free daily.

As often in Latin America, political and business issues seem to be behind the closure (as they were behind the launch). Some information is on the noticias candela blog, where it is suggested that the people behind El Diario de Caracas had dealings with FARC (Colombia) and Sendero Luminoso (Peru). This information, however, is not substantiated with other material.

After the death of 50% Kronen Zeitung owner Hans Dichand (at the age of 89, 16 June 2010) his son Christoph is taking over as publisher of the best read paper in Austria. German publisher WAZ – owning the other 50% – reluctantly agreed.

WAZ and Dichand have been quarreling over the paper since decades. A planned sale of the WAZ shares to Dichand did not succeed – the new publisher will probably make a new bid in the near future.

One of the disputed areas between the Dichand family and WAZ was publishing a free daily. In 2001 they jointly launched U-Express in Vienna. After three years the paper was closed down, much against Dichand wishes. Within half a year an independent company launched free daily Heute. It was rumored that Dichand actually was behind the launch, also because his daughter-in-law Eva became publisher. (The Dichand family cannot participate in any other newspaper without the consent of WAZ.)

Eva Dichand is still publisher of Heute, and now her husband is publisher of Kronen Zeitung, which is leading to an even more closer relationship.

The Vienna city council is spending around €15m in a year on advertising in three Austrian newspapers. Austrian paid market leader Kronen Zeitung is getting most from the city, but other paid papers lag behind free newspaper Heute and paid/free paper Österreich.

Österreich has 313,000 readers in Vienna, Kronen Zeitung is leading with 536,000 readers while Heute has 512,000 readers.

In January and February – weak months for advertising – Kronen received €730,000, Heute €690,000 and Österreich €440,000.

Vienna is in fact ruled by socialist party SPÖ, the total PR budget of the city councils “Presse- und Informationsdienst” is €47 million. Estimates from other parties is that to total budget of the city is actually at least twice as high because also power plants, public transport and housing projects owned by the city spend millions on advertising.

According to an article on the website of Austrian magazine Profil, the city council gets in return a very positive journalistic approach. The Vienna opposition does not hesitate to call it propaganda at the expense of taxpayers.