Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries: The Newspaper Publishing Industry

The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
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1. Introduction 
1.1 
Context and objective 
In the past ten to fifteen years, media and content markets have changed significantly as a 
result of digitization and the growth of the internet. These developments have led to growth in 
some subsectors of the media and content industries, but decline in others. Most importantly 
they have altered existing value chains and disrupted traditional business models. In this 
report a study will be presented of how these changes have affected newspaper publishing, as 
one of the subsectors of the media and content industries. Four other studies will deal with the 
music, film, TV and book publishing industries. 
The underlying hypothesis of this and the other sub sector studies is that digitization and the 
internet have had a profound effect on the media and content industries and might 
consequently also affect their competitiveness, in terms of the health and growth potential of a 
sector and/or its potential to have its products distributed and sold abroad. This is of particular 
interest in the context of the European Commission’s goal to strengthen the EU single market, 
in order to make Europe more competitive. 
The three leading questions in the study will therefore be: 
1 What are the main economic developments in the newspaper publishing sector? 
2 How have digitization and the internet affected the value network in the newspaper 
publishing sector?
3 How have the digitization and the internet affected the competitiveness of the European 
newspaper publishing sector? 
It must be noted that competitiveness in relation to newspapers is a difficult concept, as most 
newspapers are published for national or even regional or local markets, and provide content 
which is mainly of interest to and tailored for a the inhabitants of a particular country, region 
or municipality, in the language of this particular area. However, newspapers are also sold 
abroad; some newspapers have international audiences, some newspapers are published in 
different languages and newspapers are exported to cater for tourists, expats and business 
travellers abroad. Online newspapers can even reach international audiences much more 
easily, and as such digitization could have some impact on the level of newspaper publishers’ 
cross-border trade. 
Finally it is important to note that newspapers, like other media and content industries are not 
just economic goods, but also have cultural value, and in the case of newspapers are 
considered to be important for democracy. Newspapers have democratic functions in 
informing citizens, setting the agenda for social debate and serving as a watchdog for 
political, economic, and social centres of power (Boczkowski, 2005; Picone, 2010). This 
explains why some member states rely not only on competition and free market policies but 
sometimes also employ mechanisms for supporting newspapers or innovation in newspaper 
publishing. 
1.2 Methods 
The analysis in this report follows the framework sketched by IBBT-SMIT and TNO (2011) 
in collaboration with IPTS. This means that it will consider the interplay between:
 Technological change and innovation, especially ICT and digitization, as a major driver of 
industrial and economic change; 
 Market developments; 

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