Sołowow backs off national title
Agora's decision to shut down Nowy Dzień after only three months on the market has taken its toll on Michał Sołowow.
He was planning to change the regional daily he bought in 2000, Życie Warszawy, into a quality national title similar to Orkla's Rzeczpospolita.
The stock-exchange tycoon entrusted the mission to Piotr Lisicki, who worked on the project with a 20-strong editorial team for nearly a year. The paper was ready to be launched and compete with Agora's Gazeta Wyborcza and Axel Springer's Polish version of Die Welt, which is due on the market in April. But Sołowow finally decided the move was too risky.
"Now I know that it's really difficult to earn money in this market. In order to compete with Gazeta Wyborcza I'd have to spend some zł.200-300 million with no guarantee of success," he said in an interview for Newsweek.
It took Sołowow surprisingly long to take this decision even though media-market analysts were never enthusiastic about his idea.
"Last year's plans to double the sales of Życie Warszawy failed - the readership increased by only a couple of percent. So I'm very skeptical about the idea of turning it into a national daily," BRE Bank brokerage house analyst Michał Marczak told WBJ on the eve of the launch of Nowy Dzień four months ago. Życie Warszawy still only sells some 20,000-25,000 copies.
According to Piotr Lisicki, his editorial team's work will not be wasted, as the majority of the ideas planned for the national daily will now be implemented in Życie Warszawy, with more emphasis being put on the section dedicated to Warsaw.
