The press awash in Runny ink
The gloom surrounding the newspaper business seems to keep deepening.
The latest in a series of casualties was the local Bydgoszcz paper Ilustrowany Kurier Polski. In a tale that has become only too familiar in recent weeks, its journalists were reported to have stopped working after their employer fell several months in arrears with salary payments.
Ilustrowany Kurier Polski is published by Polska Prasa Lokalna, a member of the 4Media stable, which until recently also included DWSS, publisher of the now defunct Życie and Prawo i Gospodarka dailies. 4Media has already warned the markets that it anticipates large losses for 2002 and has ruled out any possibility that the two national titles will be resurrected.
No-one has emerged from the current crisis unscathed. Even Agora, publisher of top-selling daily Gazeta Wyborcza, has seen sales of the jewel in its crown slide, and recently company chief executive Wanda Rapaczynski issued a warning that the firm's 2002 earnings would fall below expectations. She blamed the paper's woes in part on dwindling advertising sales, as companies turned increasingly to television as the vehicle for promoting their products.
All of which begs the question, why are there rumours that Axel Springer Verlag is considering the launch of a new daily that would take on the mighty Gazeta Wyborcza? One consideration is that launching a new daily requires planning several months, even years, in advance, which would hopefully see the industry beyond its current difficulties. And then, Gazeta Wyborcza's very dominance of the domestic market seems to invite competition.
Al Harris, managing director of media house Media Group, is not surprised by the speculation. "There is room for another title," he said. He accepts that the industry does have its problems: "Anyone who is not having a hard time at present is very, very fortunate."
The difficulty for Życie, and one that may yet confront other titles, was its size. By European standards, newspaper readership in Poland is very low, and the tiny circulation of the smaller dailies leaves them in a constant battle to make ends meet. In the UK, around a quarter of the population takes a national daily, Here, by comparison, the figure is nearer 5%.
"The daily newspaper market is very underdeveloped," Harris said. The country has a number of strong regional dailies, but on the national level Gazeta Wyborcza enjoys a near monopoly over the quality market, with the only serious challenge coming from Rzeczpospolita. Interestingly, Harris points out, while readers in Warsaw place Gazeta Wyborcza at the mid-to-high end of the market, outside the capital it is definitely perceived as top of the range. As for the lower end, that is dominated by the country's only real national "red top," Super Express.
One area of the market where Poland has been quick to come into line with the rest of Europe is the distribution of free dailies. Available mainly to passengers on public transport in the cities, titles such as Metro and Metropol have really caught on, with Metropol, for example, distributing almost 180,000 copies a day.
"They seem to be working well," Harris said. "They are a good addition to the range of papers." Still, they do not pose a serious threat to the established dailies. "Free newspapers are aimed at a market where newspapers are not normally read," he added.
The free dailies are, of course, funded by advertising, and Harris pours scorn on suggestions that there is not enough advertising to go round. Of Gazeta Wyborcza he said, "Feel the weight and see the size; then you can see how much advertising there is around."
But it is the potential readership, and not so much the advertising, that is the lure. In Germany, the best-selling Bild Zeitung sells nearly four million copies a day. By contrast in Poland, with a population half that of Germany's, Gazeta Wyborcza sells less than half a million. However, an Axel Springer representative questioned by the Business Journal insisted, "We don't talk about our plans. It's only speculation."
By contrast with the ebbing fortunes of daily newspapers, the weeklies here are flourishing. It's a market where Axel Springer is already well established, notably as the publisher of the Polish edition of Newsweek. Indeed, there is speculation also that Axel Springer may be planning to launch more weekly titles here before very long.
As for the dailies market, it seems inevitable that more newspapers will go to the wall, and it remains to be seen exactly how the land will lie once the gloom has lifted.
The latest in a series of casualties was the local Bydgoszcz paper Ilustrowany Kurier Polski. In a tale that has become only too familiar in recent weeks, its journalists were reported to have stopped working after their employer fell several months in arrears with salary payments.
Ilustrowany Kurier Polski is published by Polska Prasa Lokalna, a member of the 4Media stable, which until recently also included DWSS, publisher of the now defunct Życie and Prawo i Gospodarka dailies. 4Media has already warned the markets that it anticipates large losses for 2002 and has ruled out any possibility that the two national titles will be resurrected.
No-one has emerged from the current crisis unscathed. Even Agora, publisher of top-selling daily Gazeta Wyborcza, has seen sales of the jewel in its crown slide, and recently company chief executive Wanda Rapaczynski issued a warning that the firm's 2002 earnings would fall below expectations. She blamed the paper's woes in part on dwindling advertising sales, as companies turned increasingly to television as the vehicle for promoting their products.
All of which begs the question, why are there rumours that Axel Springer Verlag is considering the launch of a new daily that would take on the mighty Gazeta Wyborcza? One consideration is that launching a new daily requires planning several months, even years, in advance, which would hopefully see the industry beyond its current difficulties. And then, Gazeta Wyborcza's very dominance of the domestic market seems to invite competition.
Al Harris, managing director of media house Media Group, is not surprised by the speculation. "There is room for another title," he said. He accepts that the industry does have its problems: "Anyone who is not having a hard time at present is very, very fortunate."
The difficulty for Życie, and one that may yet confront other titles, was its size. By European standards, newspaper readership in Poland is very low, and the tiny circulation of the smaller dailies leaves them in a constant battle to make ends meet. In the UK, around a quarter of the population takes a national daily, Here, by comparison, the figure is nearer 5%.
"The daily newspaper market is very underdeveloped," Harris said. The country has a number of strong regional dailies, but on the national level Gazeta Wyborcza enjoys a near monopoly over the quality market, with the only serious challenge coming from Rzeczpospolita. Interestingly, Harris points out, while readers in Warsaw place Gazeta Wyborcza at the mid-to-high end of the market, outside the capital it is definitely perceived as top of the range. As for the lower end, that is dominated by the country's only real national "red top," Super Express.
One area of the market where Poland has been quick to come into line with the rest of Europe is the distribution of free dailies. Available mainly to passengers on public transport in the cities, titles such as Metro and Metropol have really caught on, with Metropol, for example, distributing almost 180,000 copies a day.
"They seem to be working well," Harris said. "They are a good addition to the range of papers." Still, they do not pose a serious threat to the established dailies. "Free newspapers are aimed at a market where newspapers are not normally read," he added.
The free dailies are, of course, funded by advertising, and Harris pours scorn on suggestions that there is not enough advertising to go round. Of Gazeta Wyborcza he said, "Feel the weight and see the size; then you can see how much advertising there is around."
But it is the potential readership, and not so much the advertising, that is the lure. In Germany, the best-selling Bild Zeitung sells nearly four million copies a day. By contrast in Poland, with a population half that of Germany's, Gazeta Wyborcza sells less than half a million. However, an Axel Springer representative questioned by the Business Journal insisted, "We don't talk about our plans. It's only speculation."
By contrast with the ebbing fortunes of daily newspapers, the weeklies here are flourishing. It's a market where Axel Springer is already well established, notably as the publisher of the Polish edition of Newsweek. Indeed, there is speculation also that Axel Springer may be planning to launch more weekly titles here before very long.
As for the dailies market, it seems inevitable that more newspapers will go to the wall, and it remains to be seen exactly how the land will lie once the gloom has lifted.
