Size Counts -- Tabloids Lead the Way
Philip M. Stone September 20, 2004
The news that the once mighty Blick has been dethroned by a free tabloid as newspaper circulation leader in Switzerland is sure to have ramifications far outside Swiss borders. If ever there was a case of "If it can happen there, it can happen here" then this has to be it.
The free tabloid, 20 Minutes has only been on the Swiss scene since December, 1999. It is aimed at the young commuter with some 30 pages of short news items and lots of advertising suggesting where the reader should spent his/her money. Take a look here at their web site and you'll get a very good feel for the type of product it is (Automatic translate from Google, for instance, does an adequate job putting the site into English).
Blick, owned by Ringier, Switzerland's largest publishing house, couldn't compete on price but management did decide they could compete on size. And thus in June, after a six-week trial of printing both broadsheet and tabloid, it decided size did matter, and based on reader preference became a tabloid only. Ringier has not yet said what has happened to circulation in the two months since only the tabloid has been sold.
Tabloid is marching all over Europe. The most remarkable transformation is in the UK where the Independent switched from broadsheet to tabloid in May after a few months of printing both sizes. Circulation has increased 18% to 261,000.
The Times of London is undergoing a similar exercise although it continues to print both sizes, a costly affair. Both the Times and Independent faced an obstacle they didn't expect -- that media buying agencies objected to the tabloid advertising rate card. At the Independent a new rate card has now been agreed but the squabble means the expected 2005 breakeven target for the Independent may get pushed back.
That fight with the media buying agencies has hit the Times even harder with advertisers angry over the added cost of putting ads into both the broadsheet and the tabloid. The Times took a small step just this week to stop straddling the fence by saying that the Times in Ireland will now print only as a tabloid. But then it is dealing only with daily circulation of 4,686 copies in Ireland plus some 6,300 copies in Northern Ireland.
But perhaps the most interesting market for checking out tabloid success is Germany. For several years now the German newspaper market has been in the doldrums -- advertising seriously down that in turn has led to severe cost cuts and not much investment.
Rumors abound that Axel Springer, publisher of circulation leader Bild Zietung, is planning a tabloid version (could that be why a new editor was appointed this week?) Springer has had good success with Welt Kompakti, a tabloid version of the well respected Die Welt. Welt Kompakti has most of the articles of the broadsheet, but much shorter; it is 32 pages and it is aimed directly at the young reader.
But in an interesting twist, Welt Kompakti is NOT free like 20 Minutes and the Metro newspapers. It sells for 50 Euro cents (60 US cents) -- a 60% reduction over Die Welt's price -- but at least Axel Springer is showing you can charge the young to read newspapers -- but not too much and it still must be an interesting read.
Springer has declared the tests in Frankfurt and Berlin a success and started distribution in Munich this week. Cologne starts in October and other cities are to follow.
In Frankfurt the very respected business broadsheet daily Handelsblatt has launched the tabloid News. The News will use very shortened stories not just from Handelsblatt but also from Tagesspiegel in Berlin. To relate to the young, the newspaper plans to incorporate Internet voting and mobile phone messaging. It, too, sells for 50 Euro cents (60 US cents), again making the break from giving such a newspaper away.
And in Sweden no less than five long- established daily broadsheets are to become tabloid in October, including Bonnier's Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm (its PM sister, Expressen, a tabloid, always outsold the morning Dagens Nyheter by a very large margin). Goteborgs-Posten and Sydsvenska Dagbladet will also go tabloid in October and another eight newspapers have announced similar plans.
Meanwhile, back in England, The York Evening Press used the oldest of news purveyors, the town crier, to march through the streets of York to announce news of its new format -- tabloid.
The old and the new truly march together.
ftm Follow Up & Comments
Why Pay Even 50 Euro Centimes When you Can Get the Paper Free Online? - March 20, 2006
Axel Springer has never announced the actual distribution numbers for its low-priced Welt Kompakt targeted at the young reader. It has always thrown the tabloid’s circulation and readership figures into those of Die Welt, of which it is a tabloid offspring.
Most observers believe the distribution numbers for Welt Kompakt are not good; otherwise Axel Springer wouldn’t keep hiding its figures.
But now a new marketing ploy. A PDF version of the tabloid can be downloaded for free from 0200 CET on the date of publication. Will Springer mix those numbers also into the Die Welt numbers, or will these page views be used to boost numbers so Welt Kompakt can stand on its own feet and report its own multi-platform circulation and readership numbers? Stay tuned.
Springer, incidentally, is said to be looking at launching a sensational tabloid in France along the lines of Bild, Europe’s highest circulation newspaper. The French have preferred until now at least to reserve such tabloid dirt for their weekly glossy magazines. No doubt Springer lawyers will want also to take a close look at France’s privacy laws that, because of heavy fines, dissuades the media from publishing sensational stories and pictures about personalities if those stories trespass on their private lives.
20 Minutes Rolls Ahead in Switzerland, Leaving Blick in Its Dust - September 14, 2005
The free 20 Minutes tabloid which just nipped Blick in 2004 to become Switzerland’s leading circulation newspaper has in the following 12 months taken a commanding lead, building its readership to 948,000 compared to 782,000 daily a year ago.
Blick, on the other hand, owned by Ringier, switched to tabloid last year to regain readership lost to 20 Minutes but the WEMF-REMP research group says Blick actually lost 19,000 readers in the 12 months, down to 717,000. The tabloid change brought higher kiosk sales but lower subscriptions. The real unanswered question is how much that circulation decline would have been if Blick had remained a broadsheet?
In the past 12 months 20 Minutes has built up its distribution to cover just about all of the major centers in the Swiss-German speaking region. The two major reasons given for the 20 Minutes success is that journalistically it does very well in providing the quick type of read that younger demographics demand, and it has a very close convergence between its print edition and its online site.
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