Some newspapers benefit a lot from the Internet, others hardly at all
TOTAL AUDIENCE Thanks to the Internet, newspapers can increase their reach. But not all increases are significant! In the last two years, most titles have been able to significantly increase their online users. With one exception: the NZZ has seen its reach fall by 15% - partly due to the paywall.
Although most Swiss newspapers are able to continuously expand their web users, the reach gains are not significant for all of them. According to Mach Basic 2013-2, around 2.217 million people throughout Switzerland read the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten or its French- or Italian-language edition every day. If the users of the websites 20minuten.ch, 20minutes.ch and 20minuti.ch are also included without overlap, the media brand 20 Minuten is used daily by a total of 2.633 million people. 1.907 million of them read only the paper version, 416,000 use only the website and 310,000 access both daily. This means that the total daily reach (print + online combined) is a significant 18.8% higher than the reach figure from Mach Basic.
These figures are taken from the Total Audience 1.3 study, with which Wemf and Internet research NET Metrix report the total daily user base of some titles. Whether the online offerings are accessed via PC, tablet or smartphone and whether this is done via browser or app is irrelevant: everything is included in the figures.Regional newspapers lose outInterestingly, 20 minuti, the youngest child of the 20-minute family, benefits the most of all daily newspapers from its online presence, because its total user base exceeds its print reach by 44% or 36,000 people. In second place comes the Tribune de Genève, whose total user base is 32% or 40,000 people larger than that of Mach Basic.
With tagesanzeiger.ch, the Tages-Anzeiger can increase its print reach by 28% or 140,000 additional people, while 24 Heures reaches 21% more users (43,000 people) and 20 minutes 13% (73,000 users). All of these reach increases are significant. The 15% increase at Le Temps (17,000 people) and the modest increase at Corriere del Ticino (7% or 9000 users), on the other hand, remain within the confidence range. The Internet also does not bring about any significant gain in reach at Nordwestschweiz, St. Galler Tagblatt and the new Luzerner Zeitung.
The user figures for Blick, NZZ and Le Matin are not comparable with those of the daily newspapers mentioned, because their portals not only aggregate the online users of the respective daily newspaper, but also those of weekly and sometimes even monthly titles. However, it is clear that all the groups listed here can significantly increase their reach thanks to the Internet. The front-runners are the Blick and Le Matin groups: their total user base is 21% greater than their print reach. Newsnet follows in second place with a reach increase of 19%. This is followed by 20 Minuten (+18.8%), the NZZ network (+12%) and the NZZ Group (+10%).
Le Temps: 81% more web users in three yearsThe Total Audience study has now been published for the third time. Nevertheless, comparisons with previous years are only partially possible. This is because the methodology of Mach Basic 2013-2, on which Total Audience 1.3 is based, differs in several ways from the earlier surveys. The current print readership figures are therefore not comparable with the earlier ones. However, this does not apply to the online user figures from Net Metrix, which is why a development of the online reach (including double users) can at least be read: According to this, 20 Minuten national is now used online by 726,000 people daily (chart A), which is more than twice as many as in 2011 (334,000 people). The growth rate for the other daily newspapers was slower. The biggest increase was recorded by Le Temps, which is now used by 20,000 people online, 81% more than in 2011, even though the title was the first Swiss newspaper to introduce a paywall in January 2011. In second place is Corriere del Ticino, whose web user base has increased by 75% at a low level. Among all subscription newspapers and in absolute numbers, however, the Tages-Anzeiger has the largest online "community," counting 191,000 people and growing by 36% since 2011. It will be exciting to see how this will now behave after March 31, 2014, the day the payment barrier is introduced at the "Tagi".
Even though the print reach figures are not comparable with previous years - and therefore the total reach figures are not either - one thing is nevertheless striking: Although Mach Basic 2013-2 tends to show lower reach values for most print titles than in the past, the overall reach of most titles is nevertheless higher than ever - except for Basler Zeitung and Le Temps. At BaZ, this can be explained by the fact that Christoph Blocher's entry cost the paper around a quarter of its subscribers. This huge loss could not be compensated for by the growing online user base.Le Matin Group increased by 47%In the case of the media groups, the group figures are shown for only the second time. In addition, the composition of Newsnet has changed: In Total Audience 1.2, both the print and online figures for Le Matin Dimanche were included; in the study 1.3, only the online users are included. This much can be said about the media groups, however: The NZZ Group is the only group to have lost 15% of its web users within one year! The negative trend, which is not significant in terms of the total user base, is the result of the new portal, which was launched in mid-2012 and was initially prone to problems; in addition, the NZZ introduced a paywall in October 2012. The result: fewer daily users. All other groups increased their web usage: Blick and Newsnet each saw an increase of 29%, le Matin even increased by 47%. There is no prior-year figure for the NZZ network.French-speaking Swiss like 20 minutes on paperThere are some major differences in the user structure. Particularly interesting: 20 Minuten is used completely differently depending on the language region: At 31%, the Ticino edition has the largest proportion of web-only users. In French-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, there is the greatest demand for the print edition: a total of 89% of 20 Minutes users still reach for the paper.The differences in usage are even greater for the other titles and media groups: the title with the largest proportion of pure print readers is the St. Galler Tagblatt (92%). In French-speaking Switzerland, Le Temps has the highest proportion of print-only readers (85%). 20 minuti (60%), 20 Minuten and the Tages-Anzeiger (70% each) have the smallest share.Mix of not quite congruent studiesLike its predecessors, Total Audience 1.3 combines data from Mach Basic 2013-2 (19,000 interviews from April 2012 to March 2013) with data from NET Metrix Profile 2013-2 (measurement data from April to June 2013). Online and print data are therefore not congruent in terms of timing and survey duration. Nevertheless, the total user base of the media brands identified can at least be approximately modeled in this way.Author: Markus Knöpfli
