Newsweek set for healthy ad sales
The Polish edition of Newsweek is expected to generate strong advertising sales ahead of its September launch, despite this year's overall downward trend on the press ad market, media insiders said last week.
Wieslaw Podkanski, president of Axel Springer Polska, which owns the rights to the Polish edition of Newsweek, said ad sales have been encouraging so far.
"Advertisers expressed interest even before we officially confirmed the September launch of Newsweek," Podkanski said last week. "It was a pleasant surprise."
Market insiders are also bullish on Newsweek's prospects for attracting advertisers.
"As far as I can tell, (Polish Newsweek) is making a very good impression on the market," said Rafal Oracz, head of the press department at Warsaw-based CR-Media media broker. "And from the media planners' point of view, the launch of a new weekly is good news because it might become a strong argument for negotiating discounts with existing magazines."
A full-page ad in Newsweek is expected to cost as much as $42,000, according to Oracz, but Axel Springer is offering a promotional discount of 40%. "It's a lot if you think of the market recession, but it's not much for such a strong brand and, besides, the competition is dictating prices that are even 50% higher," Oracz said. According to him, the existing weeklies Wprost and Polityka haven't been flexible in offering ad discounts. "Wprost usually offers discounts in the range of 20-30% but I've heard that it has already softened its approach and is offering better discounts," he said. "But they want guarantees that the money will stay with them until the end of the year and I know that most clients would prefer to keep some funds available for Newsweek." According to Podkanski, the first Polish edition of Newsweek will consist of 116 pages, 20 of which will be ad pages. Even with the 40% discount, Newsweek stands to generate as much as zl. 8.5 million ($2.1 million) on ad sales in the first month alone. By comparison, Polityka generated more than zl. 8.4 million ($2 million) in ad revenue in June while Wprost earned zl. 8.7 million ($2.1 million), according to official company price lists (which do not include discounts) released by market researcher Agora Monitoring. However both Polityka and Wprost have recorded far worse months this year. In January, Polityka generated zl. 4.1 million ($976,000 million) and Wprost zl. 4.7 million ($1.1 million) according to Agora Monitoring.
Polityka's editor in chief, Jerzy Baczynski, seemed to be aware of the threat posed by Newsweek. "In discount negotiations we try to be flexible only to the extent that is absolutely necessary, but no doubt the appearance of new titles will cause turmoil in our segment of the market," he said.
Axel Springer is not the only publisher planning to launch a new weekly in Poland. One of its competitors on the German and Polish markets, Bauer, is planning to launch its own weekly, Tydzien. The date of its launch hasn't been announced, though. But the well-known Newsweek brand would appear to give Axel Springer a clear advantage. While earlier the company toyed with the idea of changing Newsweek's title to a Polish one in line with the successful Russian Itogi model in the end it held to the original. "Public opinion surveys convinced us that this brand is really very strong," Podkanski said. Newsweek will target young, educated professionals, between 20 and 40 years old. Rupert Slade, deputy director general of media house Initiative Media, praised the decision to keep the original title, arguing that most Poles are already familiar with the Newsweek brand.
"There isn't much choice for reaching upmarket adults in Poland," he said. "Compared to the German market, there is no huge culture of newspapers and weeklies in Poland, but Newsweek has the right concept for a magazine to be successful here." He also said that what may underpin that success is Poland's evolving advertising market. "The media landscape as far as advertisers are concerned has changed in Poland," he said. "Three years ago, in the top 20 advertisers you had detergents, chips, soft drinks, and now it's moved toward telecoms, banking and cars. That's a good base for Newsweek. And such categories as computers, Compaq, Microsoft etc., are not even here yet."
But while Newsweek may be successful in generating ad revenue, it won't be easy to reach the readership figures achieved by Wprost and Polityka. In the first half of this year, Polityka attracted a monthly average of 1.7 million readers (5.7% of Poland's adult population) while Wprost logged 2.1 million readers (7.2% of Poland's adult population), according to SMG/KRC, a Warsaw-based market research institute. "New weeklies will be in a far more difficult situation than the two well-known brands," said Wojciech Holdakowski of SMG/KRC. "Polityka has a loyal readership, and this has been proved by surveys." Oracz agreed that while Newsweek is a well-known worldwide brand, its readership base in Poland might not be as good. "It might stay behind Wprost and Polityka, and that will affect the prices (of ads in Newsweek)," he said. "I would say that (Newsweek) will be an advertising success this year but it may stagnate next year. But Axel Springer can afford to wait."
The company is counting on sales of 100,000 copies of Newsweek initially. Wprost and Polityka each sell more than 250,000 copies per week. Newsweek's tentative circulation is planned at 350,000-500,000. Its editorial team will consist of journalists from Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Zycie and Wprost. Kot Przybora and Iwo Zaniewski, well known on the advertising market, have been hired to conduct Newsweek's zl. 12 million ($2.9 milllion) ad campaign.
