Newspaper Circulation Grows Despite Economic Downturn

Despite the global financial crisis, newspaper circulation grew 1.3 percent world-wide in 2008, the President of the World Association of Newspapers said Wednesday in a speech that contradicted “misleading” reports predicting the imminent death of newspapers.

“The simple fact is that, as a global industry, our printed audience continues to grow,” said Gavin O’Reilly, President of the World Association of Newspapers and CEO of Independent News and Media.

“But you might say that this growth is taking place in the developing markets of the world and masks a continued downward trend in the developed markets. And to a degree this is true, but not the whole story, as newspaper companies in these markets have embraced digital technologies to further improve their audience reach,” he said in a speech opening the World Association of Newspapers Power of Print Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Predicting the death of newspapers “seems to have reached the level of a new sport,” said Mr O’Reilly.

“That this doom and gloom about our industry has largely gone unanswered is, to me, the most bizarre case of willful self-mutilation ever in the annals of industry,” he said. “And it continues apace, with commentators failing to look beyond their simple rhetoric and merely joining the chorus that the future is online, online, online, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This is a mistake. This oversimplifies a rather complex issue.”

Mr O’Reilly said:
 1.9 billion people read a paid daily newspaper every day.
 Newspapers reach 41 percent more adults than the world wide web.
 More adults read a newspaper every day than people eat a Big Mac every year.

More on his comments can be found here.

Investing in the Future of the Printed Newspaper

Changing newspaper format, as the Joong An Ilbo did in March, is more than switching page sizes, says Mr Hong - it’s a matter of changing the entire approach of the newspaper.

In March, Joong An Ilbo became the first Korean newspaper to switch from broadsheet to Berliner format, after years of studying the impact of such conversions in other countries and surveying readers and experts alike.

“We spent five years studying newspapers that had successfully launched the Berliner format,” says Mr Hong. “What we have really changed is the content and process, not just the format.”

His presentation focused on how the format change led to changes in the entire newspaper concept.

The paper now includes a main section and daily targeted sections on different topics. The main daily newspaper provides general news, a pull-out economic section, culture and sports news and is accompanied by a different section each day -- health for older readers, jobs for younger readers, education and style for female readers, and a weekend section for households.

“The main section of the paper seeks “depth” and the targeted sections seek “relevance,” says Mr Hong. “We have staked our reputation on providing depth, which is something other media such as the Internet and broadcasters cannot do. Readers are feeling dizzy, lost in a vast sea of information. Instead of telling them what happened, it is more important to tell them why it had happened and what will happen next.”

Mr Hong expects the change in format to have a positive impact on circulation. In addition to increasing sales, it will also increase readership profile, especially among younger Koreans and women.

News International: A Commitment to Print

Why invest in newspapers?

“To this question, we have a one-word answer: content,” says Mr McDonald, about News Corp.’s 650-million pound investment in the world’s largest printing plant - the size of 23 football fields, and able to produce 3.2 million newspapers each night.

“The world is becoming more complex, with more questions than answers. Therefore we have to have content that is compelling and that can be trusted,” he said.

And it’s what consumers want - great, up-to-date content at the right quality and price, with ease of access from trusted brands.

Newsprinter’s plant in Broxbourne, England, north of London, contains 12 state-of-the-art, full colour manroland Colorman XXL presses. In addition to all of News International titles (including the Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, News of the World and thelondonpaper), the Broxbourne plant and two others print The Telegraph Media’s Group’s 900,000 copies daily, and 650,000 on Sunday.

In addition to being an investment in print quality, the Newsprinters operations is also an investment in efficiency, Mr MacDonald said - it allows for later deadlines and earlier delivery. And late scores now get into the paper.

“Newspapers Have a Long-Term Future”

In the midst of a global recession, with daily reports about the “demise” of newspapers, a new report presented at the Power of Print conference by PricewaterhouseCoopers demonstrates that newspapers have a long-term future.

The report by PwC, in cooperation with the World Association of Newspapers, focuses on the changing behaviour of news consumers, and the response of newspaper publishers, advertisers, advertising agencies and media buyers to these changes.

Ms van der Donk, one of the authors of “Moving into multiple business models: An outlook for newspaper publishing in the digital age” presented the results of the report, which is based on surveys of 4,900 consumers, interviews with leading publishers, advertisers and media buyers, and industry reports, analysts reviews and PwC expertise.

The report says:

 Despite the huge potential for growth online, print remains the largest source of revenue for newspaper companies, and will continue to be so for some time.

 Consumers are willing to pay for online content. Two-thirds of respondents in the survey said they were willing to pay for general news content online - and all are willing to pay for it in print, despite the advent of the free daily newspaper. But newspapers need to develop strategies for monetising their content and intellectual capital.

 Traditional newspapers still have a strong and relatively loyal reader base, as their reliability is perceived as being greater than that of other media. This gives newspapers the opportunity to lead and to follow audiences as they use online and portable electronic media. The report found that the core principles of deep analysis and trusted editorial translates well online - the newspaper brand is more important than the medium.

The full report can be found here (download from bottom of the page).

Digital tools for newspaper delivery

Newspaper delivery can be a complicated task, especially if you are trying to delivery zoned editions, targeted sections and even the publications of other publishers.

Enter Softbook, an electronic manifest installed in The Arizona Republic’s delivery vehicles, that makes delivery life simpler and more lucrative.

Mr Reed described the Softbook system allows flexible delivery instructions to be communicated and followed on each carrier route. “Any list, any way, any day,” says Mr Reed.

The Republic needed such a system. In addition to delivering the flagship Republic (with a daily circulation of nearly 400,000 and half a million on Sunday), the Gannett-owned company also has 24 niche products, using three circulation models (paid, requestor and free), and delivers partner publications from nine companies (including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times). It runs 1,900 delivery routes with 1,100 carriers.

In addition to delivering 13 million Arizona Republics every month, the system allows the delivery of one million partner publications, 400,000 address specific product deliveries, 1,500 different carrier insert packages, “all with significant service and expense improvements,” says Mr Reed.

Refining Home Delivery to Capture “Premium” Audiences

High-quality dailies that don’t do home delivery should think about doing so to increase their share of key markets, and Mr Brown provided some ideas about how to go about it.

“Home delivery is an opportunity to cement relationships, build your brand, reinforce the value of print, and extend your offer to advertisers and agencies,” says Mr Brown.

But such home deliveries should be focused on key markets, which he described as those including populations with desirable demographics, with high household density to make delivery more efficient, with ease of access to printing plants, and with an available, competent labour force nearby.

Here are some of the delivery service standards for reaching and maintaining “high value” subscribers:

 Complaints should not exceed a target of one per 1,000 deliveries, and replacement copies should be delivered within one hour, or credit provided.

 Deliveries should be made by adults in vans - youth carriers no longer work. The deliverers should be classed as independent contractors.

 Routes should take no longer than two hours to complete, with the average route consisting of between 150 and 180 papers. Routes should be aligned to postal codes to allow for inserts and zoned editions.

Value Added Printing of Newspapers

Improving print quality is more than just improving colour quality, says Mr Aumiller, who says declining advertising revenues and increasing competition requires newspaper companies to enhance the value of their products.

“In my opinion, print quality is the overall value of our printed products,” he says.

Mr Aumiller, who is also Vice President of the Print City coalition of printing industry companies, provided examples and cases of how newspapers can improve their print quality, and their value, to attract advertisers and readers alike. These included:

 Start with materials - there has been tremendous development in a variety of paper grades and inks. “There are huge opportunities to design new products just using new materials,” he says.

 Personalization and interaction, using ink-jet printers to personalise print products and barcodes to deliver coupons and other products.

 Hybrid press technologies that allows newspaper and magazine quality publications to be produced on the same press. Newspapers that have installed such presses - about 350 worldwide -- have extended their publishing portfolios, returning outsourced printing to in-house, and creating commercial printing businesses.

The art of channel management

Sign of the times? The Stora Enso paper mill in south-eastern Finland produced newsprint and magazine paper for more than half a century before it was closed last year and sold to Google, which is turning it into a server centre.

But the growth of digital media and the changing media landscape do not mean the death of print, says Mr Pentikäinen - it means new channels will join print, and newspaper companies must develop strategies that consider that distinct advantages of each medium.

“The distinctive features, and their effect on our business, of different channels must be taken into consideration,” he says.

The positive attributes of print include familiarity, readability, simplicity, quality and credibility, home distribution, functionality and the durability of the reader relationship. Online media attributes include being always connected, providing continuous updates, enables vast amounts of content, and, in mobile form, can be used in “intermediate” states like waiting and travelling.

These attributes are used to formulate the offerings on the different platforms: print is better for news about foreign and domestic affairs, politics and culture, heavy on background information, interviews, expert opinions, in-depth analysis and the best of reader comments. Online and mobile are best for breaking news, finance, sports, results and entertainment.

Finally - the personalized newspaper is here

Newspaper companies have talked for ages about producing personalized newspapers that deliver just what the reader wants, with nothing extraneous.

“The personal newspaper has arrived: it’s green, targeted and print on demand,” says Mr Vandevanter, who coined the term ‘Individuated” newspaper to describe the new product, which is delivered to home printers or portable devices with equal ease.

Readers get exactly what they want: home delivery of the printed newspaper on days they’re free to read it, like weekends, and I-News personalized for their tastes delivered daily digitally, in a printable format if they want to take it with them on their morning commute, along with coupons for coffee or other products they ask for.

Advertisers get exactly what they want also - access to consumers who are specifically interested in their products. Rates for the I-product are ten times print advertising rates, says Mr Vandevanter.

More on the ‘Individuated’ newspaper can be found at www.personalnewspaper.blogspot.com.

Strategic Publishing: How to sell your content without selling your soul

The separation between editorial and advertising is sacrosanct, but surely there is an area where the two can come together, without sacrificing credibility and without journalists rebelling, especially in today’s difficult world for print?

After all, newspapers have been running “advertorials” for some years.

But these are not entirely successful, for the advertiser and for the newspaper, says Ms Davis. They’re advertising masquerading as editorial, even if they’re clearly marked as advertising, and they provide a questionable reader benefit.

What the Morning Herald and Sun-Herald have done is changed the process, creating high quality, specialized magazines or advertising features that are bundled with the newspaper but clearly separated from the core editorial product. Though the advertiser provides the brief - a tourism bureau wanting to publicise unusual things to do in its area, for example - the news staff provides the content independently, to strict standards, without the client interfering.

“We’re not selling content, we’re selling context,” says Ms Davis.

Her presentation included several examples of the specialized publications that have brought the newspaper company close to 5 million Australian dollars (2.54 million Euros) of new revenue in under 12 months. Far from being standard "advertorials", these publications are high quality customised environments and are charged at a premium.

Ms Davis recommends these precautions for creating such publications:

 Strategic publishing must always add to the reader experience of the publication.

 It must offer something new or unexpected.

- Strategic publishing always has its own environment and we encourage our clients to invent new space. We will adopt and embrace quality executions as a newspaper.

 When it occurs inside the paper, it is labeled as an Advertising Feature. We limit our support of these features.

Are you crazy? Launchng a new daily newspaper now?

Launching a new daily newspaper aimed at upscale readers might seem like folly in the current economic environment, but “I” isn’t like any other newspaper.

“I” deconstructs and newspaper, and rebuilds something different. That’s why it’s called “I” - it doesn’t mean anything in the Portuguese language, it’s just a letter, and its creators didn’t want potential readers to associate it with anything that has come before.

“The idea is not to build a new daily paper but to try to build a new media brand,” says Mr Figueiredo.

Here’s some of the differences from traditional newspapers:

 Although it has four sections, they’re not like traditional newspaper sections. “They aren’t sections like politics, sports, economy - they follow the reading pattern of people,” says Mr Figueiredo. The newspaper opens with editorial and opinion and commentary. The second section, called Radar, includes small summaries of the day’s news. The core section is called “Zoom” and provides in-depth articles on important subjects. And the final section, called “More”, is a mélange of everything, and also includes sports.

 The website does not reproduce the paper but provides aggregate news from many sources, a You Tube-like area and a social network feel. “The paper and online content are completely different because we are targetting different audiences.”

 The company hired staff through an “I want to be a journalist.com” website, starting with 1,350 candidates and choosing and training 18 to join a seasoned staff of 55 journalists. “We wanted to hire new kids with no previous experience,” Mr Figueiredo said.

Design as a competitive advantage

The Venezuelan regional daily El Informador increased its circulation 14 percent this year compared to the same period last year to become the number 1 newspaper in its market. While there were a number of factors for its success, Mr Fino spoke mainly about how the paper filled a community need, and how a new design helped it to do so.

Because it is a regional daily, El Informador decided to take a hyper local approach and draw its readers into its content. So section fronts were redesigned so they all were topped by invitations to readers to interact and send their suggestion and information by mobile telephone. “They could start to become reporters,” says Mr Fino.

The second page, for opinion, was redesigned to include daily comments from readers, also received via SMS from mobile telephones. And guest editors, drawn from the community.

“As a regional newspaper, we needed to fit in closely with readers, which means calling on important people in the region to give information on their specialties,” he says.