Sunday confinement
The Sunday market is changing. New regional Sunday papers could harm the established Sunday titles.
Sunday readership is dwindling", "The Sunday market is in decline", "The Sunday newspapers can barely maintain their level": these or similar were the titles and comments on the publication of Mach Basic 2008-2. In fact, for a year now at the latest, one has had the impression that the Sunday market in German-speaking Switzerland is saturated: all three major Sunday titles have passed their zenith, and two of them have now lost significant readership.
Katzenjammer in Winterthur
Moreover, the loss is even greater than the first regional Sunday title, Südostschweiz am Sonntag, is able to make up for with its 85,000 readers: two and a half years ago, before the paper was launched, the three major titles still had a total of 2.288 million readers; today the four of them have 100,000 fewer. Nevertheless, three other publishers have now ventured into the supposed Sunday goldmine. One of them, Guido Blumer from Winterthurer Stadtblatt, had to put his pickaxe back in the corner after just six months.
Nevertheless, the Sunday market should not be prematurely labeled as declining. After all, Sonntag, the seventh edition of the Mittelland Zeitung, has now been on the market for a year and, according to a special Wemf study, has 362,000 readers. Although this is 142,000 readers less than had been hoped for, the Sunday reach of the Sonntagsmarkt has reached an unprecedented 2.551 million readers. If you also include the recently launched Zentralschweiz am Sonntag and its readership of 248,000 - although this is only an estimate - then the number of Sunday newspaper readers rises to 2.8 million. Publisher estimates should not be taken at face value - the hopes of Südostschweiz publisher Hanspeter Lebrument and Sonntag editor Peter Wanner for more than two readers per copy for their regional editions were certainly far too optimistic. But the Neue Luzerner Zeitung was more cautious: for Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, they modestly assumed just 1.2 readers per copy, significantly fewer than for the weekday edition. In this respect, the current Sunday reach estimate of 2.8 million readers is realistic.
But an analysis of the Sunday market can hardly just be about adding up reach figures. That's why Werbewoche looked for a different approach, precisely because of the new titles and the little corroborated data currently available on them.
The chosen approach is firstly concerned with the question of how the readers of SonntagsBlick, NZZ am Sonntag or SonntagsZeitung behaved when Südostschweiz launched its Sunday editions in May 2006 and Mittelland Zeitung in September 2007. The second question is: Can we draw any conclusions from this behavior for the new situation in Central Switzerland and the Mittelland?
Southeastern Switzerland as the loser
Let us first look at the development in Südostschweiz: According to Mach Basic 2006-1, shortly before the launch of Südostschweiz am Sonntag, a total of 155,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read the daily newspaper Südostschweiz on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 82,000 read the SonntagsBlick, 48,000 the SonntagsZeitung and 25,000 the NZZ am Sonntag. Today, two and a half years later, there are a total of 23,000 fewer people who read Südostschweiz on weekdays and one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays (see table). It is not possible to say how many have switched to Südostschweiz am Sonntag instead. What is clear, however, is that the decline is primarily attributable to Südostschweiz, which now has exactly 23,000 fewer readers. In contrast, the SonntagsZeitung remained stable in the economic areas 27, 28 and 29 and 61, the Südostschweiz core areas, the NZZ am Sonntag only lost 2000 readers and the SonntagsBlick 11,000 readers.
The situation is different for the Mittelland Zeitung. Shortly before the launch of Sonntag, a total of 248,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read one of the MZ partner titles on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 122,000 read SonntagsBlick, 81,000 SonntagsZeitung and 45,000 NZZ am Sonntag. Today, one year later, there are 22,000 fewer people. What is striking is that the combination of Mittelland Zeitung and NZZ am Sonntag or Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsBlick has decreased, but there are 5,000 more people who read both Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsZeitung.
SonntagsZeitung relatively stable
A look at the core areas of the Mittelland Zeitung, economic areas 31, 32, 41 and 43, shows an even clearer picture: the Mittelland Zeitung itself only lost just 12,000 readers there, while the NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsBlick suffered above-average losses. NZZ am Sonntag, which lost 4.4 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland in the same period, lost 6.1 percent in the four economic regions, while SonntagsBlick lost 10.2 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland and even 12.6 percent in the Mittelland Zeitung region. The SonntagsZeitung, which reported a 2 percent drop in readership in German-speaking Switzerland, only lost 1 percent in the four economic regions.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as in most cases the changes in reach are not significant, particularly in the respective economic areas. Nevertheless, it can probably be deduced that a title like Sonntag, which professes to be more than a regional Sunday paper and is now taken very seriously in wide circles, can certainly have an impact on the established titles. By contrast, very regionally oriented titles such as Südostschweiz am Sonntag and probably also Zentralschweiz am Sonntag primarily reach their compulsory subscribers.
But the question also arises as to why the SonntagsZeitung of all newspapers is so resistant to its regional competitors. Did the "dumping combo subscription" with the Solothurner Tagblatt, which is offered for just CHF 100, help it? This is certainly one reason. But that alone is not enough, because the SonntagsZeitung made similarly strong gains in Northwestern Switzerland (WG 31) and Aargau (WG 41) as it did in WG 32.
Another possible explanation is that the launch of the regional Sunday titles expanded early Sunday delivery, which also opened up new areas for the established Sunday titles. Apparently, however, the SonntagsZeitung in particular was able to use this for its marketing.
Markus Knöpfli
Katzenjammer in Winterthur
Moreover, the loss is even greater than the first regional Sunday title, Südostschweiz am Sonntag, is able to make up for with its 85,000 readers: two and a half years ago, before the paper was launched, the three major titles still had a total of 2.288 million readers; today the four of them have 100,000 fewer. Nevertheless, three other publishers have now ventured into the supposed Sunday goldmine. One of them, Guido Blumer from Winterthurer Stadtblatt, had to put his pickaxe back in the corner after just six months.
Nevertheless, the Sunday market should not be prematurely labeled as declining. After all, Sonntag, the seventh edition of the Mittelland Zeitung, has now been on the market for a year and, according to a special Wemf study, has 362,000 readers. Although this is 142,000 readers less than had been hoped for, the Sunday reach of the Sonntagsmarkt has reached an unprecedented 2.551 million readers. If you also include the recently launched Zentralschweiz am Sonntag and its readership of 248,000 - although this is only an estimate - then the number of Sunday newspaper readers rises to 2.8 million. Publisher estimates should not be taken at face value - the hopes of Südostschweiz publisher Hanspeter Lebrument and Sonntag editor Peter Wanner for more than two readers per copy for their regional editions were certainly far too optimistic. But the Neue Luzerner Zeitung was more cautious: for Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, they modestly assumed just 1.2 readers per copy, significantly fewer than for the weekday edition. In this respect, the current Sunday reach estimate of 2.8 million readers is realistic.
But an analysis of the Sunday market can hardly just be about adding up reach figures. That's why Werbewoche looked for a different approach, precisely because of the new titles and the little corroborated data currently available on them.
The chosen approach is firstly concerned with the question of how the readers of SonntagsBlick, NZZ am Sonntag or SonntagsZeitung behaved when Südostschweiz launched its Sunday editions in May 2006 and Mittelland Zeitung in September 2007. The second question is: Can we draw any conclusions from this behavior for the new situation in Central Switzerland and the Mittelland?
Southeastern Switzerland as the loser
Let us first look at the development in Südostschweiz: According to Mach Basic 2006-1, shortly before the launch of Südostschweiz am Sonntag, a total of 155,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read the daily newspaper Südostschweiz on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 82,000 read the SonntagsBlick, 48,000 the SonntagsZeitung and 25,000 the NZZ am Sonntag. Today, two and a half years later, there are a total of 23,000 fewer people who read Südostschweiz on weekdays and one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays (see table). It is not possible to say how many have switched to Südostschweiz am Sonntag instead. What is clear, however, is that the decline is primarily attributable to Südostschweiz, which now has exactly 23,000 fewer readers. In contrast, the SonntagsZeitung remained stable in the economic areas 27, 28 and 29 and 61, the Südostschweiz core areas, the NZZ am Sonntag only lost 2000 readers and the SonntagsBlick 11,000 readers.
The situation is different for the Mittelland Zeitung. Shortly before the launch of Sonntag, a total of 248,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read one of the MZ partner titles on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 122,000 read SonntagsBlick, 81,000 SonntagsZeitung and 45,000 NZZ am Sonntag. Today, one year later, there are 22,000 fewer people. What is striking is that the combination of Mittelland Zeitung and NZZ am Sonntag or Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsBlick has decreased, but there are 5,000 more people who read both Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsZeitung.
SonntagsZeitung relatively stable
A look at the core areas of the Mittelland Zeitung, economic areas 31, 32, 41 and 43, shows an even clearer picture: the Mittelland Zeitung itself only lost just 12,000 readers there, while the NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsBlick suffered above-average losses. NZZ am Sonntag, which lost 4.4 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland in the same period, lost 6.1 percent in the four economic regions, while SonntagsBlick lost 10.2 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland and even 12.6 percent in the Mittelland Zeitung region. The SonntagsZeitung, which reported a 2 percent drop in readership in German-speaking Switzerland, only lost 1 percent in the four economic regions.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as in most cases the changes in reach are not significant, particularly in the respective economic areas. Nevertheless, it can probably be deduced that a title like Sonntag, which professes to be more than a regional Sunday paper and is now taken very seriously in wide circles, can certainly have an impact on the established titles. By contrast, very regionally oriented titles such as Südostschweiz am Sonntag and probably also Zentralschweiz am Sonntag primarily reach their compulsory subscribers.
But the question also arises as to why the SonntagsZeitung of all newspapers is so resistant to its regional competitors. Did the "dumping combo subscription" with the Solothurner Tagblatt, which is offered for just CHF 100, help it? This is certainly one reason. But that alone is not enough, because the SonntagsZeitung made similarly strong gains in Northwestern Switzerland (WG 31) and Aargau (WG 41) as it did in WG 32.
Another possible explanation is that the launch of the regional Sunday titles expanded early Sunday delivery, which also opened up new areas for the established Sunday titles. Apparently, however, the SonntagsZeitung in particular was able to use this for its marketing.
Markus Knöpfli
