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

The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
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The success that Sanoma has with its digital business is due to the increased amount of 
services, and improved internal collaboration according to Pentikäinen from Sanoma Finland 
(Sanoma, 2008). Advertisers can now find their desired target groups by interest through 
Sanoma Digital Online Ad Sales at the dozens of online services offered by Sanoma News, 
Sanoma Magazines Finland and Sanoma Entertainment. 
 
BUSINESS MODELS 
Content 
Like every media company, Sanoma is struggling with its business models. In its search for 
new business models, Sanoma started experimenting with online paid and free content. 
Sanoma thinks that online it can only charge for niche content. An example of digital paid 
content is the Autoweek iPad application (Autoweek is a Dutch car magazine, which is also 
responsible for all content on NUauto.nl, the special car page of NU.nl).
General content, like the news on NU.nl, has to be free, in Sanoma’s business philosophy. 
Combinations of paid and free content are also possible. An example is Sanoma’s paid apps in 
the women’s magazine Viva, which are combined with free content. Users pay per edition of 
the app (Starkenburg J., 2010). Sanoma sees rapidly increasing consumer interest in mobile 
solutions, even though the penetration of mobile services varies greatly by country. In 
addition, consumers are more willing than before to pay for flexible mobile services that make 
life easier (Annual Report, 2010). At this moment Sanoma still makes more money with 
mobile advertising than with charging for online content (Starkenburg J., 2010).
Advertisements 
Advertisers are still Sanoma’s main source for online revenues. The advantage of digital 
advertisements for advertisers is the measurability of it. The disadvantage from the 
publishers’ perspective is that advertisers, more and more, want to pay only for measured 
results (Olsthoorn, 2008). In reaction to new audience measurement possibilities, Sanoma 
News developed a cross media sales unit. This unit helps advertisers to choose the right mix 
of channels and provides an application processing tool for job advertisers to get their 
message across. The unit also creates and offers service packages based on customers’ needs, 
which provides guidance for product development (Sanoma, 2010).
Sanoma started working with other companies to develop new ways of advertising. Sanoma 
collaborated for instance with the Telegraaf Media Group (publisher) and the Ster (sales’ 
company for commercials of the Dutch public service broadcaster) to be more attractive for 
advertisers who want to advertise on smart phones (Villamedia, March 12
th
2010). Sanoma 
launched an online version of the popular women’s magazine Libelle in cooperation with Sara 
Lee and home deco magazine VT Wonen with Flexa paint (Benjamin, 2011).
Concerning new technologies, Sanoma is the first media group in the Benelux which sells 
magazine subscriptions through Apple’s digital subscription service store (Villamedia, 21 
February 2011). This is characteristic for Sanoma, which is known for always trying to be the 
first in applying technological innovations (BusinessConsultancy, 2011). Non subscription 
titles like NU.nl can also be consumed on the iPad. Sanoma offers advertising packages for 
advertisers. Toyota, Achmea and Vodafone were the first advertisers that have experience 
with these packages (Starkenburg J. , 2010). Advertisers on the NU.nl app, can use a special 
application portal and pay 25 euro per CPM (cost per thousand impressions) (Ringelestijn, 
2010). 
 

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