Stiff competition coming in the daily tabloid market

By Aleksander Nowacki

The underdeveloped daily newspaper market could see two new entrants this year, as leading domestic publisher Agora prepares to launch a tabloid publication around the end of August or early September. Market insiders see the plans primarily as a preemptive action against the challenge to Gazeta Wyborcza, Agora's flagship product, represented by Axel Springer's plans to start a publication based on the pattern of the German Bild tabloid.

"We have been aware of the (Axel Springer) challenge for some time and we are taking appropriate strategic measures in response," Wanda Rapczynski, Agora's president, told the Business Journal. She refused to disclose the exact nature of the measures.

According to unconfirmed reports, however, the plans include the launch of a rival publication even before the Axel Springer publication has hit the newsstands. This would conform with Agora's mode of operation to date, as witnessed by its introduction of a free daily in Warsaw last year in response to the success of the Metro and Metropol publications.

Although Axel Springer's director, Andreas Wiele, claimed that the new title would not challenge Gazeta Wyborcza's position, commentators observe that this year would be a good time for an attack on the market leader.

"Much of what has come up in the course of the (Rywingate) investigation is not to the liking of Agora and Gazeta Wyborcza," said Zbigniew Bajka of the Press Research Center. "They (have been giving) a fairly accurate account...but they bury the story on page seven or whatever. Gazeta Wyborcza's image as a reliable and impartial source of information has suffered as a consequence."

Gazeta Wyborcza declined to comment on the allegations that its method of reporting on the Rywingate investigation has reduced the publication's credibility, and Anna Borys-Karwacka, Agora spokeswoman, said that there was no empirical evidence to substantiate such claims.

Marzena Daszkiewicz, Axel Springer's public relations director, seemed skeptical about the news of Agora's plans for a new tabloid.

"I don't comment on gossip," she said, while admitting that the gossip had been broken by Axel Springer's own publication, Newsweek. She went on to draw an analogy with the recent rumors of a mafia death sentence on Przekrój editor Piotr Najsztub.

"I'm not prepared to judge how much substance there was to that story," Daszkiewicz said. "But there was a lot of media interest and then the story went as rapidly as it had come. I see an analogy here."

Bajka pointed out that, as well as competing with Axel Springer's daily and Super Express, the only national tabloid to date, Agora's tabloid could also take readers away from Gazeta Wyborcza, the company's flagship product.

"Some readers might also be unhappy, if Agora was seen as abandoning its high principles," Bajka said. "It could further tarnish its image." He went on to say, however, that Agora's resources in terms of generated content and decentralized printing make the concern well-equipped for the challenge. Apart from preempting Axel Springer's attack, it would be a response to a rejuvenated Super Express seen on the newsstands in recent weeks.