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

5.2.3 Advertising 
restrictions 
The strong dependency on advertising makes the publishing sector very sensitive to 
advertising restrictions. Advertising bans for cigarettes, alcohol, sweets and cars have reduced 
the potential for newspaper advertising (European Commission, 2005a).
Another issue is the newspapers’ heavy reliance on solicitation to win new subscribers (e.g. 
trial subscriptions), online and off line. Any legal change in, for instance, privacy legislation, 
which affects these direct marketing practices, also affects the potential for newspapers to 
gain new subscribers.
5.3 Financial 
measures 
Financial measures to support newspaper publishing can be divided in two types: direct 
financial support for individual newspapers, or indirect financial support for the newspaper 
market as a whole, for instance in the form of tax benefits. In their study about news in the 
internet age (2010), OECD distinguishes several direct and indirect incentives: subsidies to 
facilitate the production, printing and/or distribution of news (including funds to support a 
national news agency), reduced postal or rail tariffs, reduced value-added tax or other tax 
measures, funds to promote news diversity or papers with weak advertisement revenues and 
funds to promote modernization of newspapers and multimedia.
EU Member States in the Nordic and Mediterranean region more actively support 
newspapers, in the form of direct or indirect subsidies. Italy, France and Sweden are the most 
notable cases. The Netherlands has a Press Fund that supports media diversity by supporting 
individual titles at risk and by subsidizing innovative internet news projects and ethnic 
minority newspapers. It recently received an extra 8 million Euro for a period of two years 
(2010-2011) to support innovation in the news(paper) publishing sector and to employ young 
journalists.
Some Member States subsidise a press agency (France and Portugal). The French government 
recently also introduced a programme which offers students a free newspaper subscription. 
Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Spain and the UK have no apparent 
direct subsidies for the press, although some offer newspaper publishers loans at low rates and 
favourable depreciation rules.
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