Newspaper Innovation

Italian free daily DNews will change hands on the first of March.

Owner Mario Farina transfers the shares of the company to Emotional Advertising, the agency that is now handling the ad sales for the company.

Farina is since July 2009, also owner of the Metro free daily.

DNews, launched by Farina and Antonio and Gianni Cipriani brothers, ex-employees of the (now defunct) free daily E Polis, was expected to develop into the leading free quality newspaper in Italy.

The paper started with four editions and claimed a circulation of 800,000. In the 2011 the editions in Bergamo and Verona closed down.

The economic problems also resulted in a decrease in circulation, according to owner Emotional Advertising, the circulation is still 4870,000 but Lettera43 says that the real circulation is 50,000.

Yesterday, the last issue of Italian free daily City was published. The last issue consists mainly of frontpages of the last years. The odf of the paper can be downloaded from here.

The Castellón edition of Spanish free newspaper Què! will close down at the end of this month.

Accoording to Spanish organization for free media AEPG the edition never made any money, but the cirrent economic situation made problems worse.

The paper, launched in 2009, was operated by Vocento and Diario de Navarra.

Eight people will lose their job because of the closure.

Què! is now still present in nine Spanish market with a circulation of 600,000. In 2007 16 editios had a joint circulation of 950,000.

The changes in the leading publisher of free newspapers, Metro Interntional, have already been substantial in 2012. The main change will be in ownership as main shareholder Kinnevik has made an offer for the rest of the shares of the company.

In France Metro will move to a new – smaller – format next month while it will expand distribution to 20 to 35 new cities (without increasing the total circulation). TF1, now owning all Metro shares, also promised to invest in the company.

In the Netherlands, director Silvio de Groot was succeeded by Tim Scholte, who has a background in online; indicating the direction Metro will be moving into.

Sales results from the Netherlands in January were disappointing – minus 18% – compared to 2011 but also compared to other parts of the company. Russia and Sweden did very well (right).

In Sweden, Bonnier – the traditional enemy of Metro – will start to distribute Dagens Nyheter supplement DN Stockholm for free to all households in the Swedish capital once a week. Publisher Bonnier earlier published its own free daily City in Stockhom.

In Canada, Metro has already disvested most of it shares in the English-language papers, the company is now also talking to do the same with for the only French-language edition in Montreal.

The first results for 2011 (full 12 months) are promising. Net revenue increased  from €175m to €197m while net profit was €4.7m agains €2.9m in 2010.

Unlike other countries, France only saw a growing number of free newspaper titles and editions in the last 10 years. It started with a genuine newspaper war in Paris and Marseille in 2002 when trade unions tried to prevent free dailies from being distributed and printed.

After Metro (February 18, Paris & Marseille), local paper La Provence started MarseillePlus while 20 Minutes launched in Paris in March. Metro grew to 12 editions in the next yeras while 20 Minutes increased the number to 13. More local Plus editions started in Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux and Toulon in 2004.

A boost in circulation was brought about by Vincent Bolloré’s media group in 2006 and 2007 when they launched an evening (Direct Soir) and a morning paper (Direct Matin) in Paris. The group of morning papers carrying the Plus/Direct brand increased to 14 in the last years.

Only one free paper ever stopped publishing in France, the ToulonPlus edition (circulation 10,000) which was published in 2004 and 2005.

In total 37 free editions are published in France. Total circulation increased to 3.2 million at the end of 2011. A third of French circulation is free.

20 Minutes and the joint morning Plus/Direct papers each have a circulation of more than a million. In readersship, however, 20 Minutes is leading with 2.7 million readers. Metro is second with 2.4 million readers.

Most Italian free dailies lost readers according to the latest (2011-III) Audipress report. Only Metro recorded a small rise compared to the first three months of last year. Most paid and sports newspapers gained readers in the last six years.

La Gazzetta dello Sport had 4.4 million readers, La Repubblica 3.5 million, Corriere della Sera 3.4 million and La Stampa 2.3 million readers.

Free paper Leggo (5th position) has cut circulation in November 2011, meaning their readership (1.9 million) will drecrease. City, the 7th paper with 1.7 million readers will close this months.

The readership of Dnews again dropped, now to 262,000 – making their claim of a circulation of 470,000 highly unikely. In September DNews closed editions in Bergamo and Vernona.

Today, Metro’s world-wide guest editor is fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. Inside all Metro’s there are stories by and inspired by him.

All Metro’s can be downloaden from the ReadMetro website.

Below the covers of Brazil, France, Guatelmala, Hong Kong, Denmark, Ecuador, Holland, Hungary, Russia, Sweden, USA and Portugal (Click to enlarge).

Accoding to Danish website MediaWatch, the trade in Metro International shares was stopped last Friday because of a sudden interest in the shares, suggesting that some parties with knownledge on the Kinnevik bid bought shares beforehand.

Knnivik CEO Mia Brunell Livfors, however, denied such allegations in the Swedish financial daily Dagens Industri.

Kinnevik, Metro International’s major shareholder, has offered to acquire all outstanding shares of the Metro and all outstanding warrants.

The price of the bid for the shares is 46 to 47% higher than the current value.

The Independent Committee of the Board of Directors of Metro International unanimously recommends the shareholders and the warrant holders to accept the public offer made by Kinnevik.

Full press release can be read here.

Kinnevik now hold almost 50% of the shares (click on pictire to see bigger version). Acceptance by other shareholders is expected. The takeover will not change the strategy of Metro according to the press release.

Metro International today announced that its equity stake in Metro Czech Republic will decrease from 40.0% to 6.7% due to a decision not to participate in a capital increase.

Metro sold 60% of Metro Czech Republic in December 2007 to Mafra Media Group, a German media conglomerate controlled by the publishers of Rheinische Post (Düsseldorf).

Mafra bought the majority of Metro in the Czech Republic and ‘merged’ the paper with its own free daily Metropolitní Expres. Mafra now owns 93.3% of  Metro Czech Republic, that will operated as a franchise from now on.

“The decision not to participate in the capital increase is yet another step in the strategy where Metro aims to focus on emerging markets” according to the Metro press release.