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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Online only news providers are not included in these figures and more figures over a longer 
time period would be required to provide a clear picture.
The second indicator for competitiveness in the newspaper publishing business, discussed in 
this chapter is the level of intra and extra European trade in newspapers. Although most 
newspapers mainly cater for local, regional or national markets, there is some trade across 
borders, with most European countries mainly exporting to and importing from other 
European countries. This shows that there is a certain level of intra European trade, also 
indicating potential for increased use or even payment for online access to news(paper) sites 
from other countries. However, this is likely to be the case for only a few newspaper titles 
which cater for expats, emigrants, business people, tourists and other travellers.

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The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
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5. 
Policy and regulatory developments 
5.1 Introduction 
In this chapter we will provide a brief overview of the main policy issues affecting the 
economic position of newspaper publishers in Europe. Most of these policies are formulated 
on the level of Member States, but increasingly also EU policies have an impact.
Policies concerning news publishing markets vary considerably among EU Member States. 
As providers of information, and platforms for opinion and debate newspapers have been 
considered to play a crucial role in the functioning of democracy. A pluralistic, diverse and 
high quality news provision is seen as a prerequisite for well functioning democracies. Unlike 
broadcasting, which in many EU countries has started as a public service undertaking and 
who are mostly publicly funded, newspaper publishing has mainly been left to the market. 
The concern for quality and diversity however, has in some countries been a reason for a 
certain level of government support in the form of subsidies (e.g. Sweden, France) or for 
regulation which sets ceilings on market shares or restrictions on crossmedia ownership. 
A second important reason for policy interventions in the market has been to protect national 
newspaper markets: enterprise policies and media policies have helped national media 
companies in their efforts to stay competitive (European Commission, 2005a, p. 24). At the 
same time government intervention in newspaper markets has always been controversial out 
of concern for undue interference with the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.
In addition to national policies, the publishing sector is subject to European Commission 
policies. The Task Force for Co-ordination of Media Affairs within DG Information Society 
and Media covers the publishing industry as well as media pluralism and audiovisual policy, 
and the promotion of growth and diversity within media sectors. Other DGs affect the media 
and content industries through general economic policies, such as DG Competition (enforcing 
policies on anti-trust, merger, cartels, liberalization, state-aid etc.) and DG Internal Market 
(free movement of people, goods, services and capital). More recently, the 'digital challenges' 
for the media and content industries have come to the forefront of the EU policy-making 
agenda, for instance in the i2010 agenda and its follow-up, the Digital Agenda (European 
Commission, 2010). An important and recent policy theme, which also returns in the Digital 
Agenda, is the concept of the Digital Single Market (DSM), building on the existing efforts in 
creating a unified economic space in Europe (the Single Market), but extending it to the EU’s 
plan to create a competitive digital market by 2020 (European Commission, 2010). At the 
same time media policies have to a large extent been considered to belong to Member States’ 
competences, as is reflected in the diversity of policies in this field. Moreover, fragmentation 
in Europe due to differences in languages and culture across Member States sets limits to the 
creation of a Digital Single Market for news publishing in Europe. As mentioned earlier in 
this report, most newspaper publishers mainly cater for national, regional or local markets.
There are however also some newspaper publishers and online news providers catering for 
readers across borders. Single market issues which are particularly relevant in this context are 
copyright issues. If the European news publishing market is to benefit from economies of 
scale and if it wants to be open to new media players and online only news providers, more 
efficient ways of clearing copyrights and ways of protecting the copyrights of content owners 
in the digital domain, are asked for.
In this chapter we will not provide a full overview of policies and policy changes in individual 
EU Member States nor will we cover all relevant EU policies. Freedom of speech issues or 
issues regarding editorial codes of conduct and other forms of self regulation, which are very 

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