European Free-sheets Closing Down

Dato, the first free-sheet to close down in Denmark is followed by similar German shut-downs. Germany Business News, the free business paper by Holtzbrinck (Handelsblatt) is published this week for the last time. The paper started in August 2006 as the successor of the cheap tabloid News, and had a circulation of 110,000 in the beginning of this year. It was delivered to more than a hundred businesses. Lack of advertising income was the main reason for the closure. The BusinessNews website however will carry on.In April the free sports paper Sportzeitung closed down. This paper was available on Lufthansa flights and had a circulation of 13,000. Also in this case lack of advertising caused the problems. In 1999-2001 the Norwegian publisher Schibsted tried to introduce the 20 Minutes concept in Cologne but was forced from the market after Alex Springer and a local publisher launched competing free papers of their own. Three small free dailies remain: Süddeutsche Zeitung Primetime, Handelsblatt am Abend, FTD Kompakt; all of them distributed on Lufthansa flights or ICE trains. Also a part of the circulation of Welt Kompakt is distruted for free ion trains. Combined circulation of these titles is less than 60,000.

Thanks to http://www.newspaperinnovation.com for this info.

Global Newspapers Circulation increased 4.61 percent in 2006

Newspaper circulations world-wide rose 2.3 percent in 2006 while newspaper advertising revenues showed substantial gains, the World Association of Newspapers announced today.

WAN said global newspaper sales were up +2.3 percent over the year, and had increased +9.48 percent over the past five years. Newspaper sales increased year-on-year in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, with North America the sole continent to register a decline.

When free dailies are added to the paid newspaper circulation, global circulation increased +4.61 percent last year, and +14.76 percent over the past five years. Free dailies now account for nearly 8 percent percent of all global newspaper circulation and 31.94 percent in Europe alone.

“Newspapers in developing markets continue to increase circulation by leaps and bounds, and in mature markets are showing remarkable resilience against the onslaught of digital media. Even in many developed nations the industry is maintaining or even increasing sales,” said Timothy Balding, Chief Executive Officer of the Paris-based WAN . “At the same time, newspapers are exploiting to the full all the new opportunities provided by the digital distribution channels to increase their audiences.

Paid daily newspaper circulations were up in 31 percent of the countries surveyed in 2006, stable in half the countries and down in 19 percent. Over the past five years, newspaper circulations were up in more than half of the countries surveyed and stable in 20 percent.

  More than 515 million people buy a newspaper every day, up from 488 million in 2002. Average readership is estimated to be more than 1.4 billion people each day.

  Seven of 10 of the world’s 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China, Japan and India account for 60 of them.

  The five largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 98.7 million copies sold daily; India, with 88.9 million copies daily; Japan, with 69.1 million copies daily; the United States, with 52.3 million; and Germany, 21.1 million.

Pressdisplay brings Newspapers Online

Last week Pressdisplay.com mailed me and said they had chosen to give me unlimited personal access to their new system.- And I must say I am impressed. I have just read my local tabloid, Jerusalem Post and The Guardian in full versions on my tablet-pc with a bunch of features that makes newspaper reading much more fun and integrated with what else I do. I can blog a specific article as an image with link to the full original article for my readers to view, I can have articles read by a female machine voice if I prefer and I can setup a subscription system locally on my laptop that automatically downloads my preferred newspapers among more than 200. The system also stores my downloaded newspapers for up to 60 days.

Let me show you how it works.

Pressdisplay lets you access more than 200 newspapers from one site and with one subscription. When you subscribe you can read your newspapers before it appears in newsstands and before it is even printed! As a subscriber you can read your newspapers online and/or download the PressReader, a program that lets you read and manage newspapers for offline reading and more convenient page browsing.

Interestingly the Pressdisplay browser really makes the regular print newspaper format browsable. Specially if you use a vertical screen like a tilt LCD or tablet pc. I use the PressReader on my tablet PC, but there is a version for smartphones as well running the Windows Mobile platform 5.0.
When logged in to my account I can browse newspapers by language, title or country. I can pick a newspaper and its front page will appear in full screen size. At the bottom of the screen some tools for surfing, zooming and other things show up. At the right thumbnails of the issues other pages are listed. One click and that page shows up. Pages can also be flipped by clicking the corners of the pages.

This is yesterdays edition of The Guardian, viewed with PressReader online. This is also here I can choose newspapers for my off line PressReader.

Here is the downloaded version on a tablet. All pages is listed at the right sidebar.

If I chose to hear the words of an article spoken I just click the loudspeaker icon next to the headline of an article and a player starts.

I choose to save The Guardian for offline reading.

The Guardian now shows among my other preferred newspapers in the PressReader display, it is fully downloaded and I can start reading.

Most of the time I read in single page full screen view. It takes a few minutes to get used to the navigation. One click zooms in and four-way scrolling is done by holding the pen down on the screen. Here you see full page view, the text is too small for reading articles.

First level zoom is perfect for reading four columns, that makes up The Guardians Berliner format.

If I find something interesting, that I would like to share I can send a number of articles each month to friends and theres a blogging feature that allows subscribers to publish directly from the system to blogs. WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal and MSN Spaces are supported.

PressDisplay has a range of subscription models. There is a free sign up, where you can view front pages and buy single editions for USD 2.75. for USD 10 you can have monthly access to 31 newspapers of your own choice etc. There is also some corporate solutions and plans for libraries and hotels.

Circulation battle on the streets of London

Two free newspapers in London are fighting a circulation battle on the streets.One of the papers, London Lite, sent a video recently to media buyers that showed distributors ostensibly dumping 2,900 copies of its rival, The London Paper, into garbage bins. The London Paper responded by saying that it had pictures of dumped copies of London Lite.

The accusations matter to advertisers because newspaper ad prices are largely based on circulation. The British Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry group, said that it would investigate.

The London Paper has a circulation of about 502,000, according to the audit bureau, in contrast to 400,000 for London Lite. But analysts say it is hard to know how many of those copies are actually read, because The London Paper and London Lite are distributed by street hawkers who try to press as many copies as they can into the hands of evening commuters, writes the New York Times.

Time Inc. to end Life magazine but keep it online

Time Inc. said on Monday it would stop publishing Life, the iconic photography magazine that has been a weekly newspaper insert since 2004. It is the latest magazine to shut down as more readers desert print publications for online news and photos. Time is laying off 15 editorial workers and 27 in its business department in connection with the shutdown, said spokeswoman Dawn Bridges. Time will make Life’s collection of 10m images available online, with ‘the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century’ available for free for personal use, it said. The announcement comes after the company launched a redesigned version of its US newsweekly Time. Earlier this year it announced plans to cut 289 jobs from its estimated 11,300 work force to lower costs as it invests more in the internet.