Tag Archives: free press

The Uncertain Future of Free Dailies

TweetThere are signs. Not necessarily good ones. At ten in the morning in Paris, you still find piles of free dailies at almost every distribution point. At four in the afternoon, in the business district, outside one of the busiest subway stations, unopened stacks of copies of Metro lay soaked by the winter rain. Two [...]

Young readers: already hooked on subsidies

TweetI love my country. Among many things, I enjoy its business attitude. In the media sector, it is an unabashed mixture of entrepreneurship, bold risk-taking and fearless independence. You can’t spend a week here without someone telling you : “Hey, you know what? We’re about to send some of our journalists, paid by the Ministry [...]

Inhale, it’s Free

Tweet“Free”, as a business model, is a figment of the imagination. In itself, “Free” is not a business model, it is only a component of broader revenue system. Unlike Chris Anderson, author of the book “Free” ($18.00) — a bestseller not a bestfreebie — I happened to actually practice the free “model”. Between 2002 and [...]

Web + Print: A Powerful Combo

TweetIn today’s context of massive revenue depletion, everyone (almost) agrees on one thing: digital media revenue sources will have to be diversified. There is no magic bullet, no dominant model that will guarantee, by itself, a sustainable revenue stream. Time to think the hybrid way.  Free will coexist with paid-for, different users (occasional vs. intensive) [...]

Paid-for-free papers: the mirage of the hybrid models

TweetIn less than five years, major newspapers will be giving away more than 50% of their copies. We call this the hybrid model. It works like this: a paid-for newspaper (one posting a price on its first page) with a vast portion it circulation distributed in selected – that’s the key point — areas for [...]

What a modern newspaper will look like.
Inventing the DIS.

TweetA few years ago, someone involved in the rescue of the French newspaper Libération asked me what would I do to save the paper. The question meant a lot to me. I had spent a total of twelve years at “Libé”, many of those when the paper was at its best (I even enrolled Jean-Louis [...]

UK’s CityAM : profit and expansion

TweetThe free business newspaper CityAM is growing slowly but steadily. Its circulation is now close to 102,000 copies, a 47% increase since its launch in September 2005, and it could now expand out of London. Financially, CityAM made a 59,000 Euros profit for the six months ended in March, on revenues of 4,4m Euros for [...]