Through its Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, WAN is seeking to define the key issues to circulation growth, and will present its findings at the Congress, to be held from 30 May to 2 June in Istanbul, Turkey.
Among the circulation winners to be featured is Zero Hora of Brazil, where close cooperation between the editorial and circulation departments has resulted in daily reader feedback surveys carried out by the customer service department and presented to the editorial department every afternoon.
"Every person who contacts the call centre, perhaps to change their address or query their bill, is asked the same simple question. ’What did you read in the newspaper today?’," says Jim Chisholm, Director of the WAN Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project. "They are encouraged to comment on what they think is good or bad about the newspaper and all the feedback from the calls is placed on the editors’ desk every afternoon."
Eight journalists out of a total of 180 are employed to handle readers’ opinions, comments, corrections and criticisms. They are charged with responding to every reader’s query within six hours, and they deal with 60,000 contacts a year.
The presentation will be made by Geraldo Correa, Vice President, Marcelo Rech, Chief Editor and Cristiano Nygaard, Operations Manager in the Zero Hora Newspaper Division.
Among the other cases to be presented in the session on "circulation winners" are:
The Border Mail in Australia, which is achieving constant annual circulation growth and has won the Newspaper of the Year award of the Pacific Newspaper Publishers Association for the past four years in its category (20,000 - 50,000 sales). Tony Whiting, Chief Executive Officer of The Border Morning Mail Ltd. will tell the Congress the secrets of the newspaper’s success, which include - say the PANPA judges - "pushing the barriers on innovation and creativity".
The case of the hyper-competitive Turkish newspaper market, where dozens of newspapers vie for readers’ attention is a market that is overwhelmingly single copy sales. The number of titles has been growing while overall circulation has been slipping, making the quest for readers even more competitive. The presentation will be made by Vuslat Dogan, the CEO of market leader Hurriyet, and her sister, Hanzade Dogan, the CEO of Milliyet.
Plus more cases to be announced.
The 57th World Newspaper Congress, along with the 11th World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2004, are the global meetings of the world’s press. More than 1,000 publishers, CEOs, chief editors, other senior newspaper executives and their guest are expected to participate in this year’s events from 30 May to 2 June in Istanbul, one of the world’s great cities.
The featured speakers include Karen House, the global Publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Donald Graham, the Chairman and CEO of the Washington Post, Lord Rothermere, the Chairman of The Daily Mail and General Trust of the United Kingdom, Juan Luis Cebrian, the CEO of El Pais and the PRISA Group of Spain, and many more.
For more information, including the evolving programme details, participants list and registration information, click here or contact Julia Hewkin, Events Coordinator, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, 75005 Paris, France. Telephone +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48, e-mail: jhewkin@wan.asso.fr.
The session on circulation winners is one of five to be conducted under the WAN Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, which identifies, analyses and publicises all important breakthroughs and opportunities that can benefit newspapers all over the world. The other sessions concern new advertising concepts, newspapers in emerging markets, best business practices, and a forecast of the future media landscape.
WAN conducts the SFN project with support from six international partners -- PubliGroupe, the Swiss-based international advertising and promotion group; MAN Roland, a leading company for newspaper production systems; UPM, one of the world’s leading printing paper producers; Unisys, a leading supplier of mission-critical solutions, services and innovative technology to the publishing industry; Telenor, the leading Norwegian telecommunications, IT and media group; and Samsung Electronics, a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, and digital convergence technology.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 101 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr.
