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

The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
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creation, production and aggregation can be performed by separate entities, whereas in print 
newspapers these roles are in the hands of the same newspaper publisher. 
Step 3: Production 
In the production process, the newspaper is printed. Printing is done in-house at the 
publisher’s own printing plant, or is outsourced to another publisher or printer.
Step 4: Distribution 
Newspapers are subsequently transported to a wholesaler or distribution facility which 
handles further distribution to consumers. Newspaper copies are sold (or in case of free 
newspapers, handed out for free) at newsstands, in stores, at railway stations and café’s or 
directly delivered to consumers who subscribe to newspapers, by postal or home delivery.
For online news services, once the news is uploaded to a website (hosted on the newspapers’ 
own or rented servers), it is published and users can access the news. Distribution costs are 
close to zero because no physical transport is required. 
Step 5: Consumption 
In the final stage of the value chain for the news industry, the news is read by news 
consumers/citizens. Users can subscribe to a newspaper, buy one at a news stand, collect a 
free newspaper, access online news for free or behind a paywall, or download free or paid-for 
news apps.
2.2.1 Economic 
characteristics 
The newspaper sector is a mature sector, strongly linked to geographical location. 
Newspapers are rooted in national, regional and local settings and are mostly printed in the 
language of that region. Many European countries have a strong regional newspaper sector. In 
a 2004 study on media concentration in 10 European countries Ward (2004) showed this to be 
the case for Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden. In Germany for instance 75% of the 
national newspaper market is covered by the regional press, and some of the national 
newspapers have a strong regional base (Esser & Brüggemann, 2010). In multilingual 
countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland newspaper markets are divided 
along linguistic lines. The UK and the Netherlands have developed national markets.
Costs 
Newspaper publishing is characterized by high fixed and sunk costs and low marginal costs 
(Picard R. , 2002; Grisold, 1996). Data on the exact costs and their distribution over different 
activities in the newspaper publishing process are not publicly available. But it is generally 
acknowledged that the newspaper publishing costs depend heavily on the labour needed for 
content creation, production (printing) and distribution, as well as on the investments in 
printing plants and the costs for raw materials like ink and paper.
he costs for the editorial department are estimated to be between 14 to 30% of overall costs, 
while production (printing and distribution) vary between 20 to 50% of overall costs, 
depending on which distribution methods are used (home delivery, postal delivery or the sales 
of single copies) (Vogel, 2011) (TCITP, 2009; OECD, 2010).
The ‘first copy’ costs are high, therefore the sector depends on economies of scale. The more 
people buy the newspaper, the lower the average costs per copy and the more profit the 
newspaper publisher can generate. The high fixed costs lead to high entry barriers to the 
newspaper market. The introduction of ICT has led to cost reductions in production and 
printing of news, as well as in many back-office activities such as customer management and 
sales of advertising etc. At the same time, due to declining subscriptions to newspapers, the 
costs for printing and delivery and the average costs per copy have increased. Figures on the 

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