De Persgroep's portfolio

It is the best time ever to invest in newspapers and the best time to look back on hypes that never materialized, a fresh look at the business models of newspapers, mobile, internet, free newspaper, etc. but especially a story about the passion for the most beautiful medium on earth. De Persgroep made the largest newspaper investment in Europe in 2009 by buying PCM Uitgevers, editor of AD, NRC, Volkskrant en Trouw. Xavier Verellen, the Chief Commercial Officer of De Persgroep (Belgium) spoke about it on the second day of the INMA Outlook 2010 conference in Liverpool.
Xavier Verellen showed the attendees the love that Persgroep has for printed newspapers. As he said, all great ideas he takes from INMA conferences, such as marketing campaigns, internet strategies (they look at best examples and implement the best ideas), books and dvd collections. All of those have made Persgroep very successful in Belgium. They publish 3.7 million paid newspapers per day. There is no tv programme in Belgium that reaches even 1.7 million viewers per day.

Here are all the hypes Xavier Verellen recognizes as most important to the newsmedia market and how Pergroep deals with them:

1. Free newspapers. Nobody talks about it anymore, suddenly it’s no more a threat. Persgroep does not follow that concept. 275 million dollars cumulated loss of Metro in 2000-2009 makes Persgroep treat the idea of free newspapers as the mistake in the industry.
2. Format changes: broadcast, belgian, berliner, tabloid, compact, micro. Basic idea is for Persgroep fully acceptable, but the execution in different parts of the world was not right. Persgroep followed the trend of format change.
3. Internet. Persgroep goes the same internet path, but it believes web has not the same power, not the same involvement as print does. Paper attracts readers for 45 minutes daily, in web, readers only scan the information. Persgroep looks closely at the internet and believes it is important to invest in that.
4. Integrated newsroom. Pergroep has a main goal: they want to grow on the internet, but they don’t want to lose a single paper copy. Despite starting online operations in 2003, Persgroep has separated newsrooms, with different people working there – crossing only in marketing. This way print journalists remain creative towards every print edition of the newspaper.
5. Newspaper as a magazine. Absolutely not supported by Persgroep. They want to make every day there’s a pleasure to read newspapers. Everyday, the newspaper brings news. They shouldn’t become “daily magazines”.
6. Mobile. The jury is still out. Of course people will use mobiles, but it’s going to be a huge work involved to build the right business model. Profits are needed to be seen for Persgroep to invest in this market.
7. Cross media selling. Those are two different worlds according to Persgroep. They differ in terms and in usage. Persgroep wants to diverse, and focus on each platform singlehandedly.

Xavier Verellen concluded, that print is stillthe best business model in the world, and it will never be equalled to by internet or mobile business models.

Juan Señor

Forum4Editors: Juan, you  are well known for your optimism considering the future of printed newspapers. Please tell our readers why do you think, against most of the opinions, the printed newspapers are not doomed for extinction?

Juan Señor: I am very optimistic and confident considering the future of newspapers, provided that newspapers companies realize they are in the news business and not in the paper business. I believe no medium in history has ever replaced another medium: cinema didn’t replace the theater, television didn’t kill the radio. Perhaps the only medium that has ever died must have been a telegraph or a fax machine.

The internet will not kill newspapers. But they will not survive as mass media products the way we think of them today. I believe newspapers have a great future as premium products. Products that offer something entirely different rather than being a newspaper record of something from the day before.

Today, some publishers’ strategies are so differentiated that it is hard to even call them strategies. Mass firings are often the only way for publishers to deal with the crisis, but the product itself remains the same. What are the newspapers’ attributes that publishers should focus on, in order to help their newspapers survive?

Newspaper in my opinion has to go premium. It’s price should increase, as from the economic point of view, newspaper executives can make as much money if they sell fewer papers at doubled or trippled price.

Of course it means having something to say that is not commodity news. If their content proposition is being the newspaper record of the day before (like the typical New York Times model of all the news that fit to print), then they are destined for extinction because people can get same content from somewhere else much faster.

While working on a newspaper, journalists and editors should be answering three questions: why something happened, what it means, and what’s next. It is something we call “Why” newspapers or “What’s next” newspaper, or in other words “a forward journalism”. It means a totally different product in print, and a totally different product online. And always it has to be high-high quality.

Newspaper executives should realize that in print, they are not in breaking news business anymore. The newspapers should be telling not only what happened, but also what it really means to the reader. For instance, if Chavez is buying weapons in Russia the newspaper should be telling what it means fot the balance in the Latin America, for consumers, inhabitants and so on.

From a business point of view the paper should become haute couture. Think of it as the fashion industry with brands such as Armani. Armani makes money by selling jeans to a mass audience who aspire to own a little piece of Armani but obviously cannot afford it. Haute couture is something you do that hardly ever makes money. It can make money if you are successful but you sell fewer dresses to a specific targeted audience. But without Armani main brand it would be hard for the company to sell something from a subbrand such as Armani Collecione for example.

The paper product will always be needed for the news organization to sustain the relationship with the clients. It’s going to be the niche, quality product.

When news publishers think online, it means they have to start to charge for content. I am not talking about the paywalls, and I believe this word should be banned. It’s not about creating the wall and closing the doors. It’s about creating new spaces, it’s about showing people what they can pay for. It’s something that could be called service journalism. It’s about leading people to all the kinds of content that may be interesting and relevant to them.

The commodity news is not the right direction. I look at the front pages of newspapers from all over the world. One of them had once a headline saying that the King of Pop is dead, nearly 30 hours after this news had been confirmed! In that case, newspaper publishers cannot expect people to walk by the newsstand and say “wow, Michael Jackson died!”. It’s impossible to gain reader’s interest that way, unless they live in a cave. This is what’s killing newspapers – the lack of innovation, the lack of imagination, the lack of understanding of what people really want from the newspaper. Then, on the other hand, a journalist at another newspaper writes the following headline: “Michael Jackson died 20 years ago”. And that’s an interesting point, interesting journalism, something that makes you want to grab that newspaper and learn what the author had to say.

I know it can be done. We have experienced it with two newspapers in two European cities with tight, mature market. One newspaper is “i” in Portugal that was launched by Innovation from the scratch. It is growing 16% since its launch and it costs 2 Euros per copy. The other one is “Liberation” which we relaunched in Paris in early September, its growth has been 12% in Paris. It’s all about finding new purpose for print. That’s how we see it. Same thing will happen with books, it’s just another print product. They’ll go hard covered, they’ll go premium, same as newspapers. To give the readers different experience.

The great advantage will have those newspaper executives who will make the transitions quickly. They can still reconnect their brands with their new audience. Newspaper execs need to stop milking the same cash cow all over again. If they really want to milk the same cash cow, it’s their choice, but they should stop complaining then. They should stop pointing their fingers at Google, as Google is not a threat, rather a part of the sollution. I worked with Google and they know newspapers have exactly what they want. They have got the content proposition, and they’ve got the credibility, it’s what they call the last mile to reach the audience. You can search everything in Google and still not understand what it really means, when you put it through the journalistic filter, all af a sudden everything seems clear.

Please tell me your list of 5 best newspapers in the world and explain shortly why do you think they deserve this title.

1. “i” in Portugal: 16% growth this year. It is a quality premium content proposition.
2. “Liberation” in Paris. It is a brand that was pretty much tired, angry and now has become a very cool paper and is chic again. It has a great deal of credibility in France.
3. “Correio de Bahia” in Salvadore, Bahia (Brazil). It is a very popular quality daily newspaper. And it is very relevant to its audience.
4. “El Tiempo” in Colombia. Organized perfectly as a multimedia operation.
5. “La Vanguardia” in Barcelona – a very relevant content proposition.

Thank you very much for this interesting conversation and I’m looking forward to meeting you in Liverpool.

In a couple of days, a pioneer project in Europe is about to begin. Niiu, the personalised newspaper is based in Berlin, Germany, and represents the young person’s lifestyle and information needs on a daily basis. It structures the daily information overload that young people are experiencing and pools together diverse sources of information in order to offer the best of newspapers, the internet, and communities. Niiu will be printed on classic newsprint and delivered at the home each morning.

Wanja Oberhof, the founder of Niiu

Wanja Oberhof is the founder of Niiu. He is also one of the speakers on the upcoming INMA / OPA Outlook 2010 conference. Read what Wanja Oberhof told Forum4Editors about the project, and if you wish to listen to him live or be able to ask him few questions personally, make sure you register for the conference in Liverpool. Less than two weeks are left!

Forum4Editors: Please explain to our readers what the idea of personalised newspaper is all about?

Wanja Oberhof: Niiu – the first individualized newspaper will combine various print and online content regional, national and international newspapers plus the essence from the internet. Customers can select their specific individualized content through a web-based platform. This personalized mixture is digitally printed and delivered to you every morning.

How many and which newspapers cooperate with Niiu?

Different regional, national and international titels are participating but we will not reveal them until going live on October 13th.

The model of Niiu

Please describe in short how the production cycle of a personalised newspaper looks like. What are the deadlines for printing, distribution, etc.?

Every client has the possibility to configure his or her own newspaper until 2 pm every day. Our unique technology aggregates, personalizes and publishes the various content automatically. This data is send to our printing press online. The press prints the newspapers overnight. Finally it is delivered home to each reader until latest 8am every morning.

How popular is personalised newspaper so far? Would you call it a success after the first few months of existance? Is it the future of newspapers?

niiu is the first individualized newspaper so far. There is nothing comparable in the market at the moment. Due to our official start in a few weeks, we can say that the feedback is phenomenal! I could imagine that individualized newspapers are one trend in the future, but to my mind there will be more future scenarios for newspapers. I think there will be different services, bringing various content, on several ways (iphone, e-ink, paper, e-reader) to the clients.

An idea of a personalised newspaper sounds great, but on the other hand I am afraid what I would talk with my friends about. If everybody reads a personally tailored newspaper, how does one find common topics for conversations?

To my mind, there are no problems, because the topics are more or less the same like in a regular newspaper. niiu is more about a variety of titles you can choose from. And if your friends have the same interest like you, you can choose a similar combination as they do. Additionally you can suggest single newspaper pages, blogs or RSS Feeds to them. After all you have a larger field of interest to talk about.

Thank you very much.

And what do our readers think about the idea of personalized newspaper? Is it the future of print or rather postponing its death? Please let us know in the comments below.

The news comes a week after another struggling US daily newspaper Science Christian Monitor announced its relaunch as a 24/7 news website with a weekly edition.

According to an internal memo reported by the Washington Post, the U.S. News & World Report’s website will be enhanced and the magazine’s team will produce “special reports, daily news updates, blogs, newsletters, rankings, guides and videos.”

And while the magazine will still publish one print edition each month, these will be entirely devoted to consumer guides — such as its annual rankings of colleges and hospitals — and contain no other news.

At the end of 2007, U.S. News’ circulation was just over 2 million, trailing Time, with 3.4 million, and Newsweek, owned by The Washington Post Co., with 3.1 million

U.S. News’ attracts about 7 million unique monthly visitors.