Axel Springer denies rumors that it is planning to launch a national daily

Axel Springer Polska (ASP), which impressed market watchers last fall with its smooth rollout of Newsweek Polska, may have another product in the pipeline. Sources told the WBJ that ASP is working on a national daily, although ASP vehemently denied the possibility. "We are not working on a daily," said Florian Fels, managing director of ASP. "I know about the rumors, even at Axel Springer people asked me that question, but it is all untrue." Meanwhile, industry experts agree there is room on the market for another national daily but are divided over what kind of profile it should take. "There is still room for one more daily," said Zbigniew Bajka, a professor and deputy head of the Press Research Center, affiliated with Jagiellonian University in Kraków. "Already last year I heard that German publishers might try to establish a daily based on a formula similar to Bild." Axel Springer's Bild, a tabloid, sells more than 4 million copies a day throughout Germany.

"It's a classic tabloid and may even be the largest newspaper in Europe," Bajka added. In comparison, Poland's No. 1 tabloid Super Express has proved a strong title in a depressed advertising market. Last year Super Express netted 8% higher revenue in the first quarter than either Gazeta Wyborcza or Rzeczpospolita, the nation's top two dailies. "Super Express's content still lacks some relevant features of Bild, though," Bajka said. "It doesn't have investigative reporters who cover political and economic scandals. In short, (the new daily) would have to be even more sensational than Super Express." But Grzegorz Lindenberg, a media consultant and former president of Media Express, the tabloid's publisher, said another tabloid would not be a good option. "The problem is that the Polish counterparts of Bild's readers don't read - they watch TV," he said. "So if I were to invest my own money I would bet on a serious daily publication that would compete with Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. I can see room on the market for such a daily with a circulation of around 200,000 copies." Lindenberg said a new daily would require an investment of at least zł. 200 million ($48.7 million) and three years before it starts to generate profits.

"It could be launched in several months but you would have to buy top journalists from around the market," Lindenberg said. "I was thinking about creating a new daily myself but only until I heard ASP was working on the same project." While Lindenberg wouldn't say what a new daily might look like, Jagiellonian University's Bajka said that if tabloid wasn't an option, the new daily could follow the concept of Die Welt, another German daily published by Axel Springer. "Die Welt has been always ranked among the top 20 world dailies and it's conservative without any kind of political bias," Bajka said. "Conservative publications of Die Welt's quality have clientele all over the world." But market watchers said starting another daily would be a real challenge because the existing competition is strong. Center-left Gazeta Wyborcza's average daily circulation this year is 549,475 with 439,198 sales, according to the Association for Control of Press Distribution (ZKDP). For its part, economic and legal daily Rzeczpospolita's strength is built on subscriptions, with nearly 50% of its 257,344 average circulation sold that way. This year Super Express has sold about 305,949 copies a day.

"Gazeta Wyborcza has high readership figures and can dictate higher prices to advertisers, so a new daily would need to offer lower prices but at the same time comparable readership figures," said Małgorzata Grzyb, media director at Initiative Media Warszawa, a Warsaw-based media house. "A new daily wouldn't attract completely new advertisers so it would have to compete for the existing ones. On the other hand, from the point of view of advertisers it's always better if there's more than one leading publication on the market." But Tomasz Wołek, founder and former editor in chief of Życie daily, said the market for information and political dailies is closed. "The Polish advertising and publishing market is shallow and worse still, young people tend to prefer electronic media to print so a newcomer would have to address a specific group of readers," he said. "Why not women? A daily addressed specifically to women could be a success. They're better readers of press than men."