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Eamonn Byrne, Deputy Director General of the World Association of Newspapers,
and a round table discussion with industry leaders
 From Left: Roger Parkinson, President of the World Association of Newspapers; Hans-Peter Rohner, CEO, Publicitas Promotion Network, Switzerland, Pentti Arvela, UPM Kymene |
In this new research project, the World Association of Newspapers and its READY partners will endeavour to find the main business opportunities for newspaper in every major area of newspaper operations, from technology developments to strategy initiatives.
It will create a "rolling" series of papers on each research topic and compile them annually. This compendium "will serve as a guide to future models and an essential strategic planning tool," said Mr Byrne, who presented the first paper in the series, this one on the "Tailored Newspaper."
Mr Byrne pointed out the technology to tailor a newspaper to a variety of criteria – regional distribution, subject categories, demographics among them – already exists. This technology involves digital printing, micro editions, zone inserting and others. Mr Byrne presented case studies of how this technology is being used – but none of them are truly tailored newspapers.
That raises a question: "why aren't we taking advantage of it?"
"The unique strength of
the newspaper is to deliver unexpected news."
Hans-Peter Rohner, CEO, Publicitas Promotion Network, Switzerland
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The full READY report on the tailored newspaper
The panel of experts, comprised of major suppliers to the newspaper industry, sought to answer his question.
Peter Rohner, CEO of the Publicitas Promotion Network, said: "The unique strength of a newspaper is to deliver unexpected news. I see a number of media that are fragmenting and in the middle of that I see a mass media newspaper able to deliver 40, 50, 60 percent of an audience in a given market."
Lodovico de Briganti, Marketing Manager, Publishing Solutions, for Unisys, added: "to tailor a newspaper you have to know your readers and if you don't have terrific information, you can't tailor it too much. Do you know who your customers are? Being a mass product, I'd say probably not."
Other members of the panel were Roger Parkinson, President of the World Association of Newspapers, Graham Langmead, Executive Director of Print Media South Africa, Pentti Arvela, Senior Vice President of UPM Kymmene, Peter Kuisle, Executive Vice President, Sales, for MAN Roland, and Max Schoch, Managing Director, WRH Marketing Asia.
The session also looked at another product with immediate potential: the "pdf" newspaper, in which newspapers are now being offered, in printed newspaper format, for downloading through web sites. Dianne Newman, Director of Information of Scotland's Business a.m. demonstrated how the new format works – it looks like a newspaper, with all text, photos, graphics and advertisements, it sells for the same price as the printed version, and it is nearly as easy to navigate.