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

Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries 
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flow to large ICT or hardware providers, this might have serious consequences for 
investments in for instance more expensive forms of journalism such as investigative 
journalism, or for local news production in less affluent communities. In the US there are 
some examples of sponsor / donor supported investigative, online journalism, but in Europe 
this model is (still?) less common. User generated content to some extent provides a solution 
for the severe budget cuts or even disappearance of local newspapers, but again there are 
concerns on the level of quality and continuity that this type of reporting can provide. 

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The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
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4. 
Current and future competitiveness of the European 
news industry 
4.1 Introduction 
In this chapter an attempt is made to assess the competitiveness of the EU newspaper 
publishing market. There are various definitions of competitiveness. Porter defines the 
competitiveness of a location (a country or a sector) as the productivity that companies 
located there can achieve. Others also look at the health and growth potential of a sector in 
terms of value added and labour productivity or at the ability to sell on international markets 
(Ketel, 2006).
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Not all EU or national industries have an equal potential to grow and become more 
competitive. This depends, amongst other factors, on the availability and costs of natural 
resources, (skilled) labour, the level of consumer demand and openness to innovation.
In this chapter we will use indicators which express the relative strength of the sector in terms 
of turnover, circulation and employment, and indicators which express the level of cross-
border trade. However one could question the relevance of latter interpretation of 
competitiveness for the newspaper sector. Media and content industries in Europe have 
historically mainly produced for local markets, because of language barriers and the 
specificity of cultural tastes and values. Within the media and content industries there are 
however important differences in the level of cross border trade. Music, film and television 
series, especially from the US and the UK, are strong export industries and have found 
international audiences, as well as some books, especially if they are translated in different 
languages. In contrast, most newspapers have mainly national, regional or local readers, 
because of language barriers and the strong connection between their content and the local, 
regional or national context in which they are published. Most relevant for the majority of 
readers are national, regional or local news, or, in case of international news, a selection and 
presentation which reflects a nation’s cultural, political or economic perspective on 
international news events. Only rarely does a reader in Paris read a German newspaper nor is 
a reader in Berlin very likely to buy a French newspaper. Exceptions are newspapers which 
are sold abroad to expats, immigrants and tourists. In addition there is a small group of 
newspapers which could be characterized as international newspapers catering to international 
business people and diplomats, such as the Financial Times and the International Herald 
Tribune. Finally there are some national newspapers, which have an international readership, 
such as the Wall Street Journal and which appear - sometimes repackaged - in a number of 
different languages such as Le Monde Diplomatique. In general newspapers remain 
predominantly produced for national, regional or local markets. To the extent that this is the 
case, competitiveness, understood as the strength of a national newspaper publisher on foreign 
markets, or its strength vis-à-vis foreign competitors is a largely irrelevant concept. However, 
it remains possible to provide some insight into the competitiveness of the sector, when the 
concept is understood as the relative health and growth potential of a sector, compared to 
similar sectors abroad, and for those readers, mentioned above, in international or foreign 
newspapers indeed do compete to some extent with national newspapers. 
In this context it is also important to take into account that many newspaper publishers have 
become part of international, multimedia companies, operating across borders and running 
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In the European Competition Reports (2010) many other indicators of economic health, vitality and 
growth potential are used as well. 

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