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

The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
45
 
newspaper publishers have also offered advertisers the possibility to write their own content 
(advertorials).
Other examples are the transfer from broadsheet to tabloid and the introduction of Sunday 
newspapers in countries where these were not yet common and the launch of newspapers 
especially aimed at young people, often linked to major newspapers with which some of the 
content is shared. Successful examples of the latter are Dein Spiegel in Germany (launched in 
2009), NRC Next in the Netherlands. Finally newspaper publishers have tried to create more 
loyal readership by offering extra services for readers and subscribers such as reductions in 
the sale of books, records, wine, festival tickets and travel arrangements.
There are hardly any data available on the level of R&D investments in the news publishing 
sector or in the media sector in general (Dal Zotto & Van Kranenburg, 2008). Experts in the 
field observe that newspaper publishers are often not very good at innovating and spend little 
money on R&D. Nevertheless newspaper publishers have responded to technological 
challenges in numerous ways. Some of the innovations in the print product mentioned above 
will be discussed in more detail in the following two paragraphs. 
2.4.1 New 
formats 
An example of an innovation in the print product is the conversion of the broadsheet 
newspaper to the tabloid or Berliner format. The tabloid format used to be associated with the 
sensationalist newspapers in the UK (The Sun, The Daily Mirror), but as serious newspaper 
like The Independent (in 2003) and The Times (in 2004) changed to the tabloid format, it lost 
is bad name and many more serious quality newspapers changed their printing format (NRC, 
2011, 9 February 2011). Some, like The Guardian (in 2005) changed to the somewhat bigger 
Berliner format. The smaller format led to savings in the cost for paper. It was also supposed 
to be more user friendly and for instance easier to read in public transport. In many cases the 
introduction of the new format indeed caused an initial rise in sales, although this might be 
attributed more to the marketing efforts surrounding the introduction of the new format than 
to the benefits of the format itself. To advertisers the format change has sometimes been 
harder to sell. Accustomed as they were to paying for their advertisements per inch, they were 
now asked to pay the same prices for less space. So the transformations did not always 
produce the results that were hoped for. Currently in European countries the majority of 
newspapers appear in tabloid or Berliner format.