class=MsoHyperlink>Overview..

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class=MsoHyperlink>Summary numbers

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class=MsoHyperlink>Analysis: how does a web site help print circulation?

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class=MsoHyperlink>Daily newspaper circulation performance 1999-2001

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text-underline:none'>.

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class=MsoHyperlink>Weekly newspaper circulation performance 1999-2001

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text-underline:none'>.

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class=MsoHyperlink>Context: French Internet usage

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text-underline:none'>.

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class=MsoHyperlink>Conventional wisdom

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class=MsoHyperlink>Online features and circulation

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class=MsoHyperlink>Methodology.

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class=MsoHyperlink>Conclusion.

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class=MsoHyperlink>About Pressflex

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lang=EN-US style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'> 

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

Overview

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

The world’s

first countrywide survey shows that local newspapers with websites have healthier

print circulations than papers without sites.

While

conventional wisdom suggests that newspaper web sites cannibalize print

circulation, the analysis of circulation at 236 French newspapers shows no such

effect. In fact, the typical French newspaper with a web site outperformed its

siteless peers between 1999 and 2001, a period in which French Internet usage

soared. 

The French

figures validate previous US newspaper readership surveys that have suggested

that newspaper web sites generate significant marketing benefits. The

market-wide analysis means that publishers with weak circulation can cross the

Internet off their list of suspected culprits.

Summary numbers

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

The 236

newspapers, all members of the French circulation audit association Diffusion

Contrôle (www.ojd.com ) recently released

their circulation results for the first half of 2001.

Between

1999 and 2001, the average French regional daily newspaper without a web site

lost 0.88% of its circulation. Newspapers with web sites did better than that,

losing just 0.27% of their circulation over the same period.

style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

The average

weekly newspapers in France with a web site increased its circulation by 1.2%

in the 1999-2001 period, versus an increase of 0.96% for the average weekly

without a web site.

Table 1: Average newspaper

circulation changes (=median)

Analysis: how does a web site help print

circulation?

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>1.    

The

web taps potential readers untouched by traditional print sales channels.

·   

Demographics:

The typical web reader in Europe is still young, urban and tech savvy – and as

such is currently less likely to read the printed edition of the newspaper.

This “alternative” audience is not attached to the newspaper, but finds

articles via search engines when looking for news on a particular topic.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'> 

·   

Geography:

A substantial flow of readers comes from outside the printed paper’s traditional

circulation area – from another part of the country or from abroad. While this

latter trend is the most significant for English language papers, French

newspapers using Pressflex’s web publishing service receive to 25% to 40% of

their traffic from outside the country.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>2.    

Web

sites provide substantial marketing benefits that overwhelm any print

defections.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>A newspaper’s web site, filled with content,

can become a magnet for new visitors, effectively doubling the paper’s reach. A

fully indexed web site of a small newspaper with a circulation of 10,000 copies

can bring the paper an additional 10,000 web visitors a month.

style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Traffic sources include:

Ø    

Search

engines: A weekly

with only 10,000 in print circulation can win 3,500 referrals from search

engines each month.

Ø    

Links

from other sites:

style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Links to articles on a news site can provide

free marketing, with small weeklies gaining up to 1,000 such visitors a month.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'> 

Ø    

Web

address publicity:

A newspaper’s web address (www.papername.com) is easily promoted on billboards,

bumper stickers, posters, and provides an easy point of access for newcomers to

the community.

Ø    

Scoops

lang=EN-US style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>: Beating competitors with online

summaries of breaking news items can boost the brand name of a weekly paper and

increase its exposure.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>As a magnet for new prospective readers, the

site can become a new point of sale for the newspaper’s current subscriptions,

special publications and prior issues. 

The significance of this revenue stream is expected to increase as

micropayment technology becomes mainstream, Internet users become more

comfortable making online payments, and 

the euro makes cross-border shopping more popular in Europe.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'> 

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>However, much still remains to be done to

extract the full marketing potential of web sites, even in the U.S. An August

2001 study by the Finberg-Gentry, Digital Fruit Consultancy found that more

than half of 100 American newspaper web sites surveyed bury the subscription

link on their sites if they have it at all.

href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[1]

3.    

News consumption is habit-forming.

A newspaper site’s contribution to its community’s

“news culture” increases the likelihood that people will buy a paper.

lang=EN-US style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>A web site with forums,

questionnaires, polls or even just an e-mail address can connect with the

reader in new ways. Interactivity brings feedback, story ideas, letters to the

editor, and local “buzz,” but also a higher level of engagement and loyalty

from print readers. A U.S. survey

href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title="">

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[2]

last year of 15,657 visitors to eight newspaper-affiliated Web sites found

that:

style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'>·

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>       Among

site visitors who read the print edition, 7 percent began their subscriptions

after first visiting the site. That's a net gain of 3 percentage points when

compared to the 4 percent of combined print-online readers who ended their

print subscriptions. 

style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Symbol'>·

style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>       Single

copy purchases faired even better, showing a net gain of 8 percentage points.

Readership, rather than circulation, was the biggest winner, with a net of one

in five in the combined print-online audience reporting that they were reading

the print edition more since becoming visitors to the Web site.

4. Readers prefer paper to

pixels

For

most readers, the online experience is sufficiently different from print

reading that web browsing is not a “replacement” for reading newsprint but

rather a supplement. According to a 2000 study by the Newspaper Association of

America, print newspapers are preferred over online for their ease of use.

style='mso-footnote-id:ftn3' href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title="">

class=MsoFootnoteReference>[3]

Daily newspaper circulation performance

1999-2001

Conventional

wisdom notwithstanding, France’s 27 regional daily newspapers with web sites

did better in the past two years than their 30 peers without web sites.

Regional

daily newspapers without sites on average

href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title="">

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[4]

lost 1.5% of their circulation over the past two years. Newspapers with web

sites did better than that, losing just 0.77% of their circulation between 1999

and 2001. 

Considering

how the “average newspaper” fared, by calculating the statistical median of the

data, yields similar results. (Medians eliminate the effect of extreme cases

and thus better reflect what happened to a typical group member.) Last year,

for instance, the circulation of the average daily paper with a site grew 0.25%

versus 0.14% for the average daily paper without a site.

Table 2: Daily newspaper circulation

changes

Weekly newspaper circulation performance

1999-2001

Of France’s

179 audited weekly papers, just 19 have web sites. Weekly newspapers with sites

increased their circulation less than their peers without web sites over the

past two years – an average increase of 0.81% versus 1.34% since 1999, but

increased their circulation more than their siteless peers between 2000 and

2001: 1.12% versus 1.01%. The average newspaper with a site, in terms of the

median, outperformed its counterpart without a web site in both periods:

growing 1.20% in circulation versus 0.96% for papers with no sites over the

last two years.

Table 3: Weekly newspaper

circulation changes

Context: French Internet usage

Although

French Internet usage significantly lagged countries like the UK and Germany in

the 1990s because of high telephone rates and low PC usage, French Internet

usage accelerated in 2000 and has continued to rise. According to market

research firm Netvalue, the number of people in France with home Internet

access rose from 5.8 million in July 2000 (10% of population) to 10 million

(16%) by September 2001. (Comparable Netvalue statistics for the UK are 16% and

26%.)

class=MsoFootnoteReference>[5]

Conventional wisdom

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

Many

publishers instinctively see a web site as a competitor to the print edition.

Why would readers pay for news if they can get if for free?

style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Internet

research firms have stoked these fears: a 1997 study by Forrester Research

projected that by 2001 newspapers would lose up to 14% of their circulation to

the web.

class=MsoFootnoteReference>[6]

And when

PCM Utigevers, the largest Dutch newspaper group, drastically cut its online

operations in September 2001, it blamed the sites of its five national

broadsheets for cannibalizing print subscriptions.

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[7]

Online features and circulation

lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:

EN-US'>

Do

particular web site features help or hurt print circulation?

The number

of articles included on the site, searchable archives, polls, forums or e-mail

newsletters on the web site does not show any correlation to changes in print

circulation. The only feature with a possible impact on circulation growth is a

print subscription form online. 

Eight of

the 19 regional dailies with web sites included a print subscription form on

their sites. These papers did slightly better than papers with no sites or

papers with web sites but no subscription form. The eight dailies saw their

circulation over the last two years drop by just 0.09% on average, versus an

industry average of a 0.96% decline. Weeklies with a subscription feature on

their site increased circulation by 1.36% over the same period – more than

papers without sites or papers with sites but no online subscription form.

Unfortunately

for newspaper publishers, the data also indicate that for newspapers the web is

not yet as important a marketing tool as for magazines – where web sites

strongly contribute to print sales.

name="_ftnref8" title="">

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[8]

Methodology

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

The 57

French daily and 179 weekly newspapers, all members of the French circulation

audit association Diffusion Contrôle, recently published their circulation

results for the first half of 2001.

name="_ftnref9" title="">

style='mso-special-character:footnote'>[9]

After

calculating the circulation changes for each newspaper between 1999 and 2000

and between 2000 and 2001, Pressflex compared the performance of papers with

sites to those without sites. To evaluate the effect of various online features

on circulation, Pressflex also correlated the performance of sites relative to

the amount of content online and features such as a poll, a forum, an e-mail

newsletter and a print subscription form.

For the

purposes of this analysis, the Sunday editions and/or various zoned editions of

a daily newspaper were not counted. 

Also, when Diffusion Contrôle tracked the total circulation of a group

as well as the circulation of the group’s individual titles, only the

circulation of the members was taken into consideration. Newspapers whose web

site consisted of only a single page with contact information were counted as

papers without sites.

Conclusion

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

Online publishing poses no threat to a newspaper’s print circulation and

may offer significant advantages.  As

common sense suggests, the inclusion of a print subscription feature online further

boosts circulation performance… although too few paper’s take advantage of this

obvious idea.

About Pressflex

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>

Pressflex provides turnkey

sites, consulting and seminars to Europe’s largest publishing groups. Based in

Budapest, Hungary, Pressflex serves clients in the UK, France, Switzerland,

Hungary and the United States.

For

further information about this report as well as other research activities of

Pressflex, please contact consulting@pressflex.com

or Miklos Gaspar at +36 1 328 0602.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>