Newspaper giant Axel Springer reported the highest profit in its history this week. The company owns Bild, the biggest paper in Europe.
I don’t believe in the end of journalism. On the contrary, I think the crisis can have a positive impact. The number of players will diminish, but the strong players may be stabler after the crisis,” Mathias Döpfner, Springer CEO, told the New York Times.
(In Poland, where I am right now, Axel Springer puts out Fakt — one of the country’s top-selling tabloids, often considered to have questionable news value and ethics.)
In Europe, the NYT reports, circulation is falling slower than in the US, and revenue is more stable because papers here rely more on readers than on advertisers.
Online they’re doing better as well. VG Nett, affiliated with Verdens Gang, a Norwegian paper, is the most innovative. News is free, and the company generates most of its revenue from online advertising. But it has started charging for an online weightloss club and for live streams of sports games and social networking.
- European Newspapers Find Creative Ways to Thrive in the Internet Age, New York Times, March 29