FDN NEWSLETTER NO. 36 – www.newspaperinnovation.com - 830 subscribers – July 2008

Launches Circulation Readership Metro Legislation Argentina, Brazil, Top 10 North-American Growth in Spain, Italy, Gloomy 2008 Romania, Sweden USA, Greece (p. 2) free dailies (p. 2) Greece and Israel. (p. 3-4) outlook (p. 4) UK, Israel (p. 4-5)

Germany – the €400 million question Bogus numbers & weird plans How €400 million is calculated and who the sources are is ermany is the big white spot in Europe when it mysterious. It looks like a attempt to raise the entry comes to free dailies and the most contested spot barrier. Launching costs were between €10 and €20 as well. Between 1998 and 2008 paid circulation million in Spain, France, UK and the Netherlands – G Germany with a launch in 8 to 12 markets might be costly dropped with 20% from 25 to 20 million. With a substantial and growing number of non- readers, it could but €400 million seems excessive. Why a free daily ‘must’ be a perfect market for free newspapers. be launched in several markets at the same time is also not clear. Six years before break-even seems reasonable, but even then €400 million would be over the top. . After Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic, th Germany was the 4 European country with free dailies. Focusing on Deutsche Post is barking up the wrong tree. In 1998 15 Uhr Akuell started in Berlin, and launched in DP only could play a role in a home-delivered free daily – Munich and Hamburg in 1999. After losing €10 million one of the most expensive and difficult business models. the paper folded in 2000. Examples from Denmark, Czech Republic, Switzerland, . In 1999 Schibsted launched 20 Minuten in Cologne. the USA and the Netherlands actually demonstrate that Axel Springer (Bild) and local publisher DuMont such a delivery is not very successful and is only tried in a Schauberg launched their own titles, sued Schibsted, crowded market as a last resort. started a war on ad rates and made Schibsted close 20 Minuten in 2001. Both competitors closed down as well. The real barriers . In 2006 Holtzbrinck (Handelsblatt) converted their This doesn’t mean launching a free daily in Germany is tabloid News into the free Business News while without problems. But it does mean problems could lie DSV/Lufthansa launched Die Sportzeitung. Within one elsewhere. The most important is the behavior of year both titles closed down. incumbent publishers. In the past they have sold ads . Four free train/plane papers were launched as well: IC- below cost price, joined forces in fighting and preventing a Press (Der Spiegel, 1997–1999), Financial Times free daily and made deals with subway operators to ban Deutschland Kompakt and Handelsblatt am Abend free dailies in return for free advertising. (Holtzbrinck) in 2003, and Süddeutsche Zeitung Primetime in 2007. Welt Kompakt started distributing for Most of these actions actually prevent competition and free in first class trains. Joint circulation: 50,000. could be brought forward to the Bundeskartellambt, the German anti-competition agency. So far legal actions Both Metro and Schibsted wanted to go to Germany while have been directed towards free dailies, but it could be also Dagsbrun (Iceland) made plans. All plans have been the other way around as well. met by heavy resistance. Springer is said to have a ‘war fund’ of €300 million ready and could launch competitor German publishers seem determined to go all the way Gratissimo ‘within days’ while WAZ – the second German against free dailies, overlooking the chances and being publisher – also wants to fight a free daily at any cost. responsible for the fact that in Germany young people hardly read newspapers. Deutsche Post already delivered a free weekly and planned a new one covering online issues. This angered FDN - BAROMETER German publishers. Between the two not much love was

lost after publishers WAZ, Holtzbrinck and Springer The FDN barometer measures free dailies and circulation, started their own (now defunct) postal service PIN. comparing end 2005 with July 2008.

With plans for a free daily, Deutsche Post is more careful, Free Dailies 2005 / July 2008 (circ. * 1000) Jürgen Gerdes, chief of the mail-division “wouldn’t dream of starting something like that without the consent or Countries Titles Circulation 2005 2008 2005 2008 2005 2008 cooperation of German publishers” according to FT Europe 24 32 83 130 15,404 28.843 Deutschland. FTD reveals that Deutsche Post has America’s 9 10 47 76 4,792 6.618 approached all major German publishers with their plans. Asia/Pac/Afr 10 16 20 37 4,409 8.616 total 43 58 160 243 24,605 44.077 Fast declining circulation and readership might be the cause for renewed interest in a free newspaper, before This issue of newspaperinnovation is sponsored by foreign publisher invades the country. FTD cites ‘informed sources’ who state that it would take at least six years for a German project to break even, and that such an Streamline production and meet operation would cost €400m at least. deadlines more easily? Reduce costs, while improving quality? Director Dietmar Wolff of the German publishers WoodWing offers scalable organization BDZV calls the plans “a play with fire”. Wolff editorial workflow solutions, a pointed to Switzerland, where it was ‘demonstrated’ that perfect fit for any Free Daily. We “free papers are the worse enemies of newspapers.” In call it ‘Smart Publishing’. Switzerland - with seven free newspapers - the drop in http://www.woodwing.com paid circulation, however, was less than in Germany.

FDN Newsletter no. 36 – July 2008 – page 1 of 6

LAUNCHES OBITUARIES

Buenos Aires: El Argentino TU closed instead of daily Since Monday 22 July, the Argentine capital Buenos Aires Free Uruguay weekly Tiempo Uruguayo (TU), launched in has two free dailies. The new free daily by Sergio December 2005, closed down. Last year the paper moved Szpolski, is called El Argentino, and not La Mañana, as to a twice a week schedule and planned to go daily later was suggested before. Initial circulation is 250,000. in 2007.

Szpolski also owns the Spanish version of Newsweek, Lack of sufficient advertising, however, made the owners Buenos Aires Económico, Veintitrés, and Siete Días. decide that after two years the paper had to be terminated. Five people lost their job. The afternoon paper To counter the new paper, incumbent free afternoon daily counted 20 pages and was distributed in universities, bus La Razon, published by the Clarin group, launched a terminals, shopping centers, ports and airports. morning edition as well. The ‘Mañana’ edition of La Razon is distributed in 100,000 copies. MediaMatin not dead yet Although an agreement has been reached between the The organization of distributors of paid papers and labor union and the management of Quebecor concerning magazines has already protested against the new paper the locked-out staff at Le Journal de Québec, the free because it would hurt the income of the distributors. The daily published by the strikers, MédiaMatinQuébec, will be protesters had a clash with the police when they wanted around for “some weeks” at least. to block distribution. It could be the end of the 15 month labor conflict and lock- Sunday Examiner out at Le Journal de Quebec. The newspaper reported The new Sunday edition of free daily The Examiner (San that as long as the locked-out workers have not been Francisco, Baltimore, Washington) was launched July 13. reinstalled in their positions, the paper will continue. The paper is available in racks and boxes and is home- delivered as well. PLANS

The Sunday edition replaces the Saturday Examiner LA free daily edition. Apart from Sunday, Clyde Davis reports a free daily is about to be launched in also the Thursday edition LA according to the ad for staff in Craigslist. The paper will be home-delivered. All will distribute between “200,000 and 350,000 daily M-F, other days the paper will be no Saturday edition and a 500,000 circulation Sunday available in racks and edition which will be available nationally”. boxes. The local edition for the San Mateo County (San Francisco edition) will be CIRCULATION closed. Top 10 Northern American frees The paper prints 835,000 Editorsweblog published the top 10 of paid and free copies on Sundays, 735,000 on Thursday and only newspapers from the 2007 publication World Press 230,000 on Monday-Wednesday and Friday. In Trends. Their no. 1 position is occupied by the Canadian Washington average circulation is 155,000, in Baltimore Metro with 990,000 daily copies although the paper itself 132,000 and in San Francisco 128,000. (Denver Business claimed a circulation of at least 200,000 lower. Journal)

The circulation for Quebecor’s 24 hours/heures on the These figures mean that the circulation of Philip Anschutz’ other hand seems to be too low: it’s 705,000 instead of paper has gone down dramatically. Before the switch the 240,000 (that would be the circulation of the Toronto paper distributed more than 700,000 copies daily, edition only). My list, therefore, is different. meaning a 40% decrease in average circulation. Metro Canada 750,000 Destak in Rio 24 hours/heures Canada 705,000 Two years after the launch in São Paulo, free daily Destak Examiner US 712,000 made its debut in Rio de Janeiro, the second city in Brazil. Metro US 620,000 Destak Rio started with a print run of 80,000. AmNewYork 320,000 HOY (Tribune Co.) 210,000 In São Paulo Destak has a circulation of 150,000 and a RedEye Chicago 200,000 readership of 493,000. The Rio edition is distributed in 60 Express Washington 183,000 areas at subway stations, business centers, universities, Quick Dallas 150,000 shopping malls, hospitals and major street crossings. Metro Mexico 130,000 Destak is for 70% owned by Brazilian entrepreneur André Jordan and for 30% by Portuguese media group Cofina. All the US/Canadian/Mexican circulation data, however, are not audited officially by a national recognized auditing The Portuguese version of Destak started in Lisbon in organization. November 2004 and launched in Porto a year later World Press Trends also features the Dominican Republic free daily El Expreso. Information on this paper, however, Free Sunday is very hard to find. It was closed down after the Baninter On June 22, the first free Greek Sunday paper was Bank went bankrupt in 2003, but perhaps it has launched: Free Sunday. The paper is published by the resurfaced. The paper is not mentioned in any list of same company that owns free daily City Press. Free Dominican newspapers anymore. There is also no Sunday claims a circulation of 220,000 copies. website of the paper.

FDN Newsletter no. 36 – July 2008 – page 2 of 6

Palo Alto Daily Post Israel Today beats Ma’ariv The Palo Alto Daily Post increased circulation to 16,500 - Israeli free daily Israel Today is the second best read stacking more papers in boxes that were empty the newspaper in Israel after Yediot Ahronot. It surpassed earliest. The paper started in May with 15,000 copies and Ma’ariv, the traditional second paper according to a TGI expected this to rise to 20,000 before the end of the year. Survey.

Dutch free dailies grow Israel Today, owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, had an average daily exposure rate of more than 20% in Although four free titles compete on the Dutch national January-June of this year, compared with 17.4% in the market, the total circulation has gone up in the first same period last year.” quarter of 2008, compared to 2007. Metro is the free daily with the highest circulation in the Netherlands, second th According to Globes, Israel Today’s: only after De Telegraaf. Spits is 4 after paid paper AD. th th “readership apparently consists in part of people who De Pers and DAG are 5 and 6 . do not usually buy or read a daily newspaper, since

the survey found no significant change in the The differences in readership (2007), however, are more readership of other dailies during this period, in substantial. Also here Metro is the winner with 1.9 million contrast to the marked decline seen in previous years. daily readers. Spits has 3.9 readers per copy. (…) The combined coverage of the five national

dailies - Yediot Ahronot, Israel Today, Ma’ariv, Circulation Readers Readers Ha’aretz, and Globes - reached 58% in January-June *1000 *1000 per copy 2008, compared with 57.7% in June-December 2007.” Metro 553 1945 3.5 Spits 458 1801 3.9 24 Minutes, the Yediot Ahronot-owned freesheet had a De Pers 441 815 1.8 daily exposure rate of 5% in January-June 2008. DAG 380 677 1.8 total 1832 More readers for Spanish frees All four national free dailies in Spain gained readers in the Portuguese frees 1, 2 & 3 last months of 2007 and the first of 2008 compared to Free dailies lead the way in Portuguese circulation data previous years. 20 Minutos is again the best-read paper for the first months of 2008. Global Notícias distributed with 2,911,000 daily readers; a permanent growth since 200,000 copies a day, which made it the paper with the the first audit in 2002 when the paper had 857,000 highest circulation in the country. readers.

Destak is second with 174,000 before Metro with a Sports paper Marca is second while paid paper El Paìs distribution of 170,000. The first paid paper is Correio da and free daily Qué! battle for the 3rd place. El Paìs has Manha with 118,000 copies before Jornal de Noticias with only 6,000 readers more between October 2007 and May a circulation of 99,000. Free quality daily Meia Hora 2008. Metro (1,836,000) and ADN (1,812,000) are distributes 71,000 copies while free business paper OJE competing for the 5th place. ADN is by far the fastest has a circulation of 23,000. (APTC) climber among the free dailies. (full graph on www.newspaperinnovation.com) READERSHIP

Free dailies in Italy: 4, 5 & 6 All free dailies in Italy saw readership grow with 15% in 2007/2008 compared to the same period in 2006/2007. Audipress audited 10 September - 16 December 2007 and 10 March - 15 June 2008, the whole summer and the first months of 2008 were excluded.

Leggo is with 2.328,000 readers the best-read free daily and 4th in total after paid papers , and . City and Metro follow on place 5 and 6 with 1,986,000 and 1.934,000 Free daily 20 Minutos might be the best-read newspaper readers. E Polis has a combined free/paid readership of in Spain, attracting online readers seems to be more difficult. The website had 547,000 unique visitors in March 993,000. (full graph on www.newspaperinnovation.com) th 2008, which made it the 14 website in Spain and the 6th newspaper website.

Four of the five newspaper websites with more visitors in Spain, however, are sports newspapers. El País is the only general newspaper with more visitors than 20 Minutos: 1,995,000, 2nd after sports paper Marca with 2,367,000 unique visits in March.

Sports papers AS, El Mundo Deportivo and Sport also have more online readers than 20 Minutos. Paid papers El Periódico, La Vanguardia, and ABC, however, have less readers than 20minutos.es. Other free dailies are not in the top 25. Paid paper El Mundo was not audited. Paid La Gazzetta dello Sport, La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and also saw readership increase. These data indicate that even the website with most E Polis 2007 data in graph are from the 2007-II research readers (Marca) has less unique readers online in one as it was not yet audited in 2007-I). Free dailies InCitta, month than readers a day for the print version. (AIMC) DNews and 24 Minuti were not audited.

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Slovenia: žurnal24 2nd in readership they were mentioned in the 2007 annual report as ‘very strong’. Heavy competition in both Denmark and Portugal After tabloid Slovenske novice (352,000 readers) free might be explanations. daily žurnal24 is the second best-read newspaper in

Slovenia. The free daily overtook with 201,000 readers “All markets except for US, Spain, Denmark and Canada the traditional paid newspapers Delo, Dnevnik and Večer showed a profit in Q2 2008” according to the press in Slovenia in the first half of 2008. release. Also Canada was still ‘very strong’ in 2007.

A NRB-study revealed that žurnal24 was leading over Double digits profit margins are realized in “Sweden, Delo (167,000 readers, 31,000 less than the first half-year Netherlands, Hong Kong, Latin America and others”. 2007), Dnevnik (152,000) and Večer (153,000). Which means that Sweden is back on track after the

problems in the last quarter of 2007. Zurnal24 is published with 106,000 copies in 5 editions. It is distributed in boxes in city centers, railway and bus The outlook for the future is mixed: stations, parking places, at universities, hospitals and “Conditions for advertising in Europe and North companies, with more than 60 hand distributors, in more America are gloomy, regardless of the category. (…) than 300 buses of the main transport companies in 10 In South America, Asia and Russia, the outlook is cities and on Adria Airways planes. much brighter. Spending is expected to grow

significantly in the market where Metro is published, in The Saturday edition žurnal, on the market since 2004 some areas with double digits. This is partly due to and household-delivered in more than 30 cities, had a the better general economic situation, but also due to readership of 357,000. an increase in media spending. With this mixed

outlook Metro is obviously most vulnerable in the US, Greek frees first and second Canada and Europe. Hence, the defined strategy to According to the official Bari readership audit of the first grow in Asia, South America and Russia becomes months of 2008, free daily City Press is the best-read even more relevant.” newspaper in Greece with 271,000 readers, free daily Metro is second with 250,000 readers. Metro acquires 49% of Publimetro

Metro International increased its share in the Mexican Paid papers follow after the two leading free dailies: Ta publisher of Publimetro from 35 to 49%. Publimetro was Nea (185,000), Ethnos (180,000) and Eleftherotypia th launched in May 2006, the other shareholders then were (174,000). Free daily Metropolis is 6 with 167,000 MXShares (35%) and Immobilaria Torraco (30%). readers, followed by paid papers Elefhteros Typos

(138,000) and Kathimetini (107,000). MXShares was a new group, related to GBM, Grupo

nd Bursatil Mexicano (securities brokerage); Immobilaria L’Essentiel 2 in Luxembourg Torraco was a private company, managed by Antonio Luxembourg free daily L’Essentiel, launched in October Torrado. The Mexican Metro has a circulation 130,000 2007, reached 24% of the Luxembourg readers. Paid and a readership of 325,000. paper Luxembuger Wort reached 44%. Affluent Europeans read Metro Paid paper Das Tageblatt (14%) and free daily Point24 rd th An EMS 2008 survey by Synovate showed that Metro (12%) follow on 3 and 4 position. L’Essentiel, however, reaches 2.5 million affluent Europeans, which represent is first in the 15-34 group (37%), followed by Luxemburger 6.4% out of the total 40 million people, covered in the Wort (30%) and Point24 (16%). (Persoenlich) survey. Every week Metro reaches 26% of all young affluent Metropolitans in all western European countries PUBLISHERS where Metro is published.

Metro’s ‘gloomy’ outlook Metro recruits global team The Metro International ‘Q2 2008′ and ‘first 6 months Metro International is recruiting up to 12 journalists to 2008′ results show an overall decline in revenues provide material with a global appeal for all editions. compared to the same periods in 2007. Market conditions “They will be working with content, but not so much news (competition) and the economic situation (recession) as news tends to be local. Rather they will be looking at apparently had an impact. issues that are truly global such as environment, health, beauty and celebrity,” Metro CEO Per Mikael Jensen told For Q2 operational sales decreased by 4.1% while total Journalism.co.uk. net sales decreased by 8.6%. The operating profit was €0.6m (2007: €3.6 million profit). Metro recorded a net At the same time Metro is downsizing its non-editorial loss of €1.9m (2007: net profit €1.0m). workforce in its London headquarters. More global content is not an attempt to cut costs locally, Jensen stressed, and plans are in place to spend on content for In Q2 Metro sold 35% of the Swedish shares to Schibsted both audiences in the future. Jensen added: and 24.5% of the Danish operation to JP/Politiken. The “What we are doing is adding content that it will be ‘price’ of this last operation was free daily 24timer which difficult for our competitors to get, simply because we now is part of the Metro group. can offer a truly global newspaper audience. If someone like Al Gore does one interview with us, he’ll For the first six months of 2008 operational sales reach over 23 million people, and that is hard to decreased by 3.7% while total net sales decreased by match.” 7.4%. The operating loss was EUR 4.9 million (2007: €5.2m loss. The net loss of €8.3m was only slightly less than the loss in 2007 (€9.8m). Bolloré expands media empire French media tycoon Vincent Bolloré expanded his media According to CEO Per Mikael Jensen, Spain and the US empire with public opinion research firm CSA. Bolloré were the most problematic markets, followed by Denmark already owned 40% and bought the remaining 60%. and Portugal. These last two markets are remarkable as

FDN Newsletter no. 36 – July 2008 – page 4 of 6

Bolloré started his media group with commercial TV On the last moment, the paper (quoting Kristine Lowe) station Direct8, and also owns free dailies DirectMatin “doubled its share capital (from 10-20m DKK) by (with Le Monde), DirectSoir and BretagnePlus. Bolloré converting debt, which means Icelandic Stodir Invest also has stakes in advertising agency Havas and media may have parted with the company and the ownership bureau Aegis and is active in telecommunication and structure been changed. ‘Morten Lund and the audiovisual cinema production. Icelandics came to an agreement last night. I have signed the accounts and we will not be liquidated,’ Morten Nissen Nilsen, the company’s MD, told LEGISLATION Ritzau.”

London recycling plan falls short American venture capital Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) The targets of the Westminster council concerning financed majority owner Morten Lund company ML Medie recycling London Lite and thelondonpaper are not being ApS so he could increase his stake in Nyhedsavisen from met so far. The plan, started in January, aimed at 51 to 85%. Icelandic Stodir Invest now holds 15%. recycling 400 tonnes of paper - in the first six months 120 tonnes have been collected. (Guardian) New editor for mX Sydney Melissa Stevens will replace Brett de Vine as the editor of Israel Today ends Yediot monopoly Sydney’s mX. News International publishes mX also in In 1995 Yediot Ahronot was declared a monopoly in the Melbourne and Brisbane. Israeli Hebrew newspaper market because it had a market share of more than 50%. By then Ma’ariv had a 30 years of Aspen Daily News share of 25%, Ha’aretz of 10%. One of the few remaining pre-Metro free dailies, the Aspen Daily News (Colorado), celebrated its 30th birthday Free daily Israel Today, owned by US casino billionaire this month. On July 1, 1978, it started as a one-sheet Sheldon Adelson, now has a circulation of 255,000, which publication, moved to a newsprint model after a few years lowers the share of Yediot Ahronot that filed a request and is now published seven days a week. with the Israel Antitrust Authority to revoke its classification as a monopoly in the media sector. (Globes) US Spanish dailies Media website BusinessJournalism covered the Spanish Swedish newspaper tax reform language newspapers in the USA. In the analysis some The Swedish government wants to end the tax on titles are singled out as being good examples of newspaper advertising. Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn newspapers that not only are important for a community Liljeroth said this in Dagens Nyheter. The reason is that but can also give journalists a good perspective on these press subsidies in Sweden are cut down, while other communities. BusinessJournalism: media are not burdened with advertising tax laws. (EJC) “Hoy and Al Día, created by the Chicago Tribune and The Dallas Morning News respectively, have become Free dailies could profit from the new rules if they are the heartbeat of Latino communities. They also offer a treated like ‘real newspapers’. On this subject there still is wealth of information and tips for business journalists some dispute. Metro, for instance, has had a long fight at mainstream newspapers.” with the Swedish tax office on this issue. The article, however, failed to mention that both titles started as paid publications but apparently became only Metro UK involved in Murat claim successful after they moved to a free distribution model. UK free daily Metro (Associated Newspapers) is also involved in the £500,000 settlement, following the claim by Robert Murat, who was named as a suspect in the De Pers lays off 8 journalists disappearance of Madeleine McCann. (The Independent) Free Dutch daily De Pers will lay off 8 of their 51 journalists to cut costs. The paper spent 60 to70% more than the budget allowed. To cut costs further, the paper is Romania wants positive news also thinking about axing their Saturday edition. The written press in Romania will not be affected by the new press law that was accepted by the Romanian Editor-in-chief Ben Rogmans, who took over from Senate. Earlier the House of Deputies rejected the rule. publisher Cornelis van den Berg some months ago “didn’t notice” the overspending because he was so “occupied According to the law, radio and TV news must be at least with making a good newspaper” according to de 50% positive. Romanian legislation demands that the Volkskrant. president has to approve a law before it is implemented. The National Audiovisual Council (CNA) will ask President De Pers will focus more on financial and business news Traian Basescu not to approve the amendment to the and less on culture and arts in the future. Former audiovisual law adopted. (Mediafax, hotnews.ro) publisher Cornelis van den Berg stated some months ago that the paper lost €60,000 a day. Rogmans, however, TITLES says this is “much lower”.

De Pers distributes 460,000 copies a day, half of them Quick to go weekly? through public transport. The Saturday edition has a lower Free daily Quick in Dallas is about to be converted into a circulation and is distributed in shopping areas and weekly after the launch of the free broadsheet Briefing through home-delivery. that will be home delivered in Dallas (Wed. – Sat.) according to publisher Alison Draper. (free-daily.com) De Pers will be distributed in the 100 largest postal Business Points by TNT Post. These are used by owners Nyhedsavisen ownership change of postal boxes to pick up their mail. These owners are Danish free daily Nyhedsavisen failed to hand in its allowed to take 10 copies maximum of De Pers with them. annual accounts in July, which could have caused major TNT Post and De Pers stated that they also looked for problems - even liquidation - for the quality freesheet. other forms of cooperation. (Adformatie)

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Examiners wanted Non-European growth Free daily The Examiner, with printed editions in San Two thirds of the world circulation of free dailies is Francisco, Washington and Baltimore, wants free lance published in Europe. The rest is almost evenly distributed journalists/bloggers called ‘examiners’ in 59 US markets. over the America’s and Asia, with only a few titles in Australia and Africa. Examiners are expected to post at least three times a week. The ad in MediaBistro: “The compensation for this From the graph it is clear that also in free newspapers role will be based on page views. There is an opportunity Asia (yellow line) is surpassing the America’s (purple for incremental variable compensation based on your line). Full graph on www.newspaperinnovation.com. level of readership. The goal is to make you as rich and famous as possible.” (SF Peninsula Press Club)

There could arise some problems with the independence of ‘examiners’ as they are not employed by the paper and might pursue other interests at the same time. They even could be employed by some interest groups and use the Examiner to promote their ‘real’ employer, according to the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

New ’supporter’ for DAG Dutch free daily DAG (PCM publishers and telecom operator KPN) is moving closer to paid PCM-title De Volkskrant. The 8.9% owner of PCM, Stichting de Volkskrant, is thinking about ‘support’ for the free daily. A EVENTS decision will be reached in September. (Adformatie) INMA Vienna conference DAG started using Volkskrant-copy in 2008 while the free On the 1-3 October Vienna INMA conference free dailies paper is also supported by ads in the paid paper. The will be addressed in two presentations. plan was to upgrade DAG and attract a better educated readership. The phrasing ’support’ however, sounds Dietmar Sternad, Chief Executive Officer of Zurnal Media, somewhat desperate. A healthy paper, even if it is making Ljubljana, Slovenia (Styria Media) will talk about the no money in the first years, should have a sound business launch of žurnal24 in Slovenia. After only half a year on plan, not ’support’. the market, žurnal24 holds the top position, capturing

more than a quarter of Slovenia’s daily newspaper UPDATE circulation.

Since January 2007 a free daily newspaper is published Marina Dedenko, Project Manager Vecherkom, Segodnya in the town of Volos in Greece. publishing, Kiev, Ukraine, will talk about evening free The city has a population of newspaper Vecherkom’s recent launch in the Ukraine. 80,000 and is situated on the East coast, halfway between Monthly hits on www.newspaperinnovation.com have Athens and Thessaloniki. been on the rise the last months. More than 57,000 in June (July: 54,500). Free daily Magnesia, with its

title taken from the region’s name, has a print run of 7,000 Events in Amsterdam copies. It is distributed Tuesday This autumn three major events on the future of to Saturday within the town newspapers will be organized in Amsterdam. centre and the outskirts of Volos. .The 3rd World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo by WAN is taking place on October 15 and 16. There are plans for redesigning .The 11th Readership Conference & Expo; The the paper and increasing the print run. According to editor Audience-Building Conference for Publishers, Editors, Dimitris Kareklidis who send us the information, the Marketeers and other Senior Executives by WAN newspaper can easily compete with paid titles. follows on October 16 and 17. .From 27 to 30 October there is the IFRA Expo with this On the website an e-reader interface makes it possible to year’s motto “Get the Big Picture!” read the paper online, in the coming months a news portal will be introduced. Speaking in…

In the next months I will (probably) be speaking in RESEARCH .Madrid (30 September), 1st Wolrd Congress of Press and Free Publications) InCirculation article .Frankfurt (International Communications Forum, 4 November) For the July/August issue of UK media trade magazine rd InCirculation I wrote an article, called ‘The Viability of the .Barcelona (3 International Free Press Conference, 19 November) Free Newspaper Business Model’. It’s all about profits, rd losses, start-up costs, break-even periods and .Buenos Aires (21-22 November, 3 National and diversification strategies. International Congress, Forum Argentine Journalism)

InCirculation is free of charge in the UK after registration. Questions & suggestions: [email protected] Outside the UK subscription of the bi-monthly is £50. The web: www.newspaperinnovation.com article can be read online as well (Issue Archive) while there is also a Podcast of the article.

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