To the lotto the newspaper, please
Press Distribution Retail sales of Swiss print media are crumbling alarmingly. And this has been the case for years. A long-term comparison by the K Group clearly demonstrates this for the first time.
Press Distribution Retail sales of Swiss print media are crumbling alarmingly. And this has been the case for years. A long-term comparison by the K Group clearly shows this for the first time. It has been known for a long time that newsstand sales in the print media are not exactly at their best. However, the fact that they have been suffering from such a marked decline for a number of years shocked the audience at the annual meeting of the Swiss Association of Advertisers (SWA). According to Valora CEO Reto Hartmann, the development of press sales in recent years has been a crash in installments. During this period, the volume of sales generated by press products shrank from just over CHF 530 million in 1995 to just under CHF 490 million in 2002, a drop of a full CHF 40 million or a whopping eight percent.
Kiosk: Popular shopping destination
Despite the dwindling role of one of its most important pillars, the K Group was nevertheless able to further increase total sales from 1.39 billion Swiss francs in 1995 to 1.64 billion in 2002 - a growth rate of 18 percent. This was only possible thanks to above-average growth in the other two key sales drivers, tobacco products and confectionery.
The decline in print media sales is particularly striking when the sales of the biggest daily newspapers are examined over the past five years. Since 1998 (index=100 percent), the average number of copies sold per day has shrunk to 80 percent. Even this low figure is still optimistic, because the titles included include the likes of Blick. With its traditionally high number of copies sold via the newsstand, it pushes the trend curve upwards in the long term. Without Blick, the trend would have fallen well below the 80 percent mark.
But even Blick, the tabloid mainstay, no longer sells even 90 percent of the copies at newsstands that it did five years ago. The trend is even more dramatic for the other major dailies. At the end of 2002, the Bund, for example, sold less than 60 percent of the copies it sold at newsstands in January 1998. And the NZZ and the Tages-Anzeiger also slipped below the 70 percent mark.
The Neue Luzerner Zeitung (NLZ) was the only high-flyer in the general sales slump. In contrast to the other newspapers, it even managed to surpass the 1998 result several times in the following years. But since September 2001, the highs seem to be history for the NLZ as well.
What can publishers do to counteract the fateful loss of newsstand sales?
It's clear that the choice of cover story and the design of the front page are the main factors that determine whether an issue sells like hotcakes or goes unnoticed. Hartmann also recommended two other recipes. The first was not entirely serious when he said to the publishers: "Finally stop the too low prices for subscriptions. Hartmann calculated that a single subscriber pays less per copy than K Group, which orders entire pallets of the same title. This makes subscriptions far too attractive and unduly reduces the potential at the newsstand, he said.
More realistic for the publishers, on the other hand, was the proposal to choose the first day of sale of a title more deliberately. And in such a way that it falls on a day with high customer frequency at the kiosk. Such a day would be Wednesday, for example, which since the introduction of the Wednesday Lotto has become the day with the second highest visitor frequency (an average of 1.4 million newsstand customers) - even more people only come on Saturday (1.5 million customers). Just by bringing forward the first day of sales to the high-frequency Wednesday, for example, HandelsZeitung has been able to double its kiosk sales, the Valora CEO calculated to an astonished audience.
Only the tabloid Blick - a classic newsstand newspaper - is constantly moving above the (falling) sales curve.
Print media share of newsstand salesThe newspaper's share of newsstand sales remains the highest at 32.7 percent, but declined by 3.96 percent last year. The sales shares of novel and puzzle magazines developed positively: their sales share grew by 3.78 percent.
Few bring muchThe diversity of titles in press products undoubtedly makes
the attractiveness of the kiosks - about 4000 titles are available in the
largest sales outlets. For sales, the huge
offer, however, is of little relevance. Because alone with a little more than
one percent (49 stocks), K Group generates 50 percent of its
press sales. If you open the fan further, there are still "only" 489 titles that together bring in 80 percent of sales. In other words, all the other 3512 titles contribute only 20 percent of total press sales. (dse)
SWA lowers membership duesThe SWA is growing and growing: Last year, the association of advertising clients once again beat the advertising drum for new members. With success, no fewer than 26 new members were welcomed, including heavyweights such as Roche (Pharma) Schweiz AG and Ford Motor Company (Switzerland) SA. On the other hand, there were only four resignations in 2002. Add to this the two new members who have decided to join the SWA this year - Bols-Cynar-Bal-lantine's AG and Emmi Schweiz AG - and the association now has a total of 121 members.
The constantly growing number of members strengthens the association on the one hand - and pleases the individual members on the other. This is because the ever-growing membership base has made it possible to reduce membership fees by five percent as of 2004. This was decided by the SWA's General Assembly at its annual meeting last Thursday.
The new SWA director, Jürg Siegrist, is also pleased with the number of participants: With 187 registered participants, the 160 counted last year were once again surpassed. (dse)
Development of Press Sales at NewsstandsSales at newsstands have slumped by around 40 million Swiss francs since 1995 - with a further downward trend up to 2005.
Daniel Schifferle
Kiosk: Popular shopping destination
Despite the dwindling role of one of its most important pillars, the K Group was nevertheless able to further increase total sales from 1.39 billion Swiss francs in 1995 to 1.64 billion in 2002 - a growth rate of 18 percent. This was only possible thanks to above-average growth in the other two key sales drivers, tobacco products and confectionery.
The decline in print media sales is particularly striking when the sales of the biggest daily newspapers are examined over the past five years. Since 1998 (index=100 percent), the average number of copies sold per day has shrunk to 80 percent. Even this low figure is still optimistic, because the titles included include the likes of Blick. With its traditionally high number of copies sold via the newsstand, it pushes the trend curve upwards in the long term. Without Blick, the trend would have fallen well below the 80 percent mark.
But even Blick, the tabloid mainstay, no longer sells even 90 percent of the copies at newsstands that it did five years ago. The trend is even more dramatic for the other major dailies. At the end of 2002, the Bund, for example, sold less than 60 percent of the copies it sold at newsstands in January 1998. And the NZZ and the Tages-Anzeiger also slipped below the 70 percent mark.
The Neue Luzerner Zeitung (NLZ) was the only high-flyer in the general sales slump. In contrast to the other newspapers, it even managed to surpass the 1998 result several times in the following years. But since September 2001, the highs seem to be history for the NLZ as well.
What can publishers do to counteract the fateful loss of newsstand sales?
It's clear that the choice of cover story and the design of the front page are the main factors that determine whether an issue sells like hotcakes or goes unnoticed. Hartmann also recommended two other recipes. The first was not entirely serious when he said to the publishers: "Finally stop the too low prices for subscriptions. Hartmann calculated that a single subscriber pays less per copy than K Group, which orders entire pallets of the same title. This makes subscriptions far too attractive and unduly reduces the potential at the newsstand, he said.
More realistic for the publishers, on the other hand, was the proposal to choose the first day of sale of a title more deliberately. And in such a way that it falls on a day with high customer frequency at the kiosk. Such a day would be Wednesday, for example, which since the introduction of the Wednesday Lotto has become the day with the second highest visitor frequency (an average of 1.4 million newsstand customers) - even more people only come on Saturday (1.5 million customers). Just by bringing forward the first day of sales to the high-frequency Wednesday, for example, HandelsZeitung has been able to double its kiosk sales, the Valora CEO calculated to an astonished audience.
Only the tabloid Blick - a classic newsstand newspaper - is constantly moving above the (falling) sales curve.
Print media share of newsstand salesThe newspaper's share of newsstand sales remains the highest at 32.7 percent, but declined by 3.96 percent last year. The sales shares of novel and puzzle magazines developed positively: their sales share grew by 3.78 percent.
Few bring muchThe diversity of titles in press products undoubtedly makes
the attractiveness of the kiosks - about 4000 titles are available in the
largest sales outlets. For sales, the huge
offer, however, is of little relevance. Because alone with a little more than
one percent (49 stocks), K Group generates 50 percent of its
press sales. If you open the fan further, there are still "only" 489 titles that together bring in 80 percent of sales. In other words, all the other 3512 titles contribute only 20 percent of total press sales. (dse)
SWA lowers membership duesThe SWA is growing and growing: Last year, the association of advertising clients once again beat the advertising drum for new members. With success, no fewer than 26 new members were welcomed, including heavyweights such as Roche (Pharma) Schweiz AG and Ford Motor Company (Switzerland) SA. On the other hand, there were only four resignations in 2002. Add to this the two new members who have decided to join the SWA this year - Bols-Cynar-Bal-lantine's AG and Emmi Schweiz AG - and the association now has a total of 121 members.
The constantly growing number of members strengthens the association on the one hand - and pleases the individual members on the other. This is because the ever-growing membership base has made it possible to reduce membership fees by five percent as of 2004. This was decided by the SWA's General Assembly at its annual meeting last Thursday.
The new SWA director, Jürg Siegrist, is also pleased with the number of participants: With 187 registered participants, the 160 counted last year were once again surpassed. (dse)
Development of Press Sales at NewsstandsSales at newsstands have slumped by around 40 million Swiss francs since 1995 - with a further downward trend up to 2005.
Daniel Schifferle
