Monday Note

First of all, note the evolving language: the term Online Readers is now passé as it morphed into Digital Readers. The shift reflects two trends: a broader range of device types and, in news consumption, the spectacular rise of mobility. Today, we’ll focus on a recent set of surveys that quantify these trends. And we’ll take a look at their impact on business models and strategies.

The first survey was released last week in Paris by Havas Media, a major European advertising player with a 25% market share in France. Last May, the polling company CSA surveyed a panel of 600 people reading 20 major French publications: national dailies and weeklies. Because the French rate of ownership for digital devices is comparable to what happens in other markets, the survey’s findings can be safely extrapolated outside of France.

Here are the key findings:

Respondents declare spending 37 minutes a day on digital publications as opposed to 22 minutes a day on print press. This number is astonishingly high. It shows the switch to digital has occurred – at least for readers of large national medias. It also confirms the segmentation of digital audiences. More broadly, when Nielsen finds that, on all mature markets, internet users spend no more than 30 minutes a month on digital newspapers, it also proves how important it is to go after the most loyal customers as opposed to collecting eyeballs – and flybys – for the sake of raw audience numbers that carry less and less economic meaning…)

How media consumption is distributed: according to the Havas Media survey, 51% of the respondents prefer web sites, 31% go for electronic editions, and 17% use applications. In these numbers, the web’s dominance reflects (a) the high volume of contents that are still free as many publications keep playing both sides of the fence, meaning both ad-supported and paid-for models, and (b) the importance of real time news.
In contrast, the lower score of digital editions stems from the fact most still use a basic PDF format. This doesn’t deliver the best reader experience, nor does it fit the needs of mobility: download speed and reading comfort on a smartphone screen. (I’ll come back to the future of digital editions in a next Monday Note by talking about the ePresse.fr kiosk we launched last week in France).
As for the poor scoring of apps, it can be explained by the lack of great interfaces for smartphones, and the still relatively small penetration of tablets.

When do people actually read their news on digital devices? Mid-morning breaks constitute the first of two prime times during which web consultation is favored by most users (36% of respondents), while digital editions and apps account each for 21-22%  (apps are doing quite well at lunch time). The second prime time occurs in the evening, after work, when use is evenly distributed between devices.

The Havas Media / CSA survey also points to the prime motives in news consumption:

#1: Real Time information, mentioned by 48% of the respondents.
#2: Free access. Not really surprising, it will be difficult to get people to pay for news. But there is hope: 29% say they’d be willing  to buy a digital edition. Interestingly enough (and sweet to Havas’ ears): 72% of respondents would be ready to trade a digital subscription in exchange for advertising, and 54% would trade the ability to get free downloads of digital contents in exchange for more advertising.
#3: Availability. A notion that encompasses accessibility and ease of use.
#4: Selectiveness is seen as print’s privilege and a key factor of for liking it.

As for the tablets, 56% of their use involves reading the branded press; that’s behind internet usage (77%), email (66%), or watching videos (62%). Respondents are not apps freaks: they have downloaded only 7 free apps and a bit less that 4 paid-for apps in their devices. These surprisingly low figures appear to be specific to the French market.
In the United States, according to recent Nielsen survey, the picture is different: iPhone/iPad users have an average of 48 apps of all kinds in their device, vs. 35 for Android users and 15 for RIM users (read Jean-Louis’s recent Monday Note to understand the Blackberry’s problem).
But if you factor the actual use of these apps by counting people who open them several times a day (68% of the users for iOS, 60% for Android and 45% for RIM), you’ll see what provides the best return on effort in the application business. In terms of numbers of app loaded and used, if we take a base of 100 for iOS,  Android will score 64 and the Blackberry 21.
Of course, the picture needs refinement: on the tablet market, Apple still dwarf Android by 100 to 2 but in the smartphone business, Android enjoy a 38% penetration (according to Nielsen), vs. 27% for the iPhone and 21% for RIM. Altogether, between a higher Android penetration and more usage by iPhone users, building apps for each platform will yield the same result in terms of market reach.

In conclusion, what does this mean for our media business?

1 / There is still a long way to go for applications to match browser adoption; it is mostly a question of interface quality.
2 / People expect real-time news, including in applications, or the added value needs to be outstanding.
3 /  Digital editions carry more of the brand attributes; but as long as they are not supported by better applications, and able to provide real time news updates, they will remain a relatively small market.
4 / The advertising model needs a bigger dose of creativity: a large chunk of readers would agree to more ads as long as their publication remains free — which paves the way to reinventing the sponsoring model for digital editions or for encapsulated contents.

— frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com

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