Small format in trend
Newspapers The tabloid format continues to provide a boost in an almost entirely stable newspaper landscape.
Newspapers The tabloid format continues to provide a boost in an almost entirely stable newspaper landscape, with the small format once again providing the expansive impetus in the Swiss newspaper market this year. As expected, 20 Minuten comfortably overtook Blick with an additional 90000 readers (+13 percent) and a total of 782 000. In particular, 20 Minuten succeeded in strengthening its position in the Basel area, but Blick, which was overtaken by the commuter paper, is in good shape. With 736,000 new readers, it is also trending clearly upwards. It remains to be seen whether the switch to tabloid format in the summer will give the Ringier paper even more momentum. Like Le Matin in French-speaking Switzerland, for example, which has benefited extraordinarily from the change. With an additional 36,000 readers (+12.2 percent), the newspaper is once again reaping a rich harvest from the switch to tabloid.
Apart from 20 Minuten and Le Matin, only the small St. Galler Nachrichten saw significant growth. On the other hand, the daily newspapers hardly suffered any losses this time. Among the top 20 losers, they are only represented by a single title, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. With its high loss of 27,000 readers (-7.9 percent), the paper seems to be making up for what the Tages-Anzeiger experienced in previous years.
Incidentally, the daily press was surprisingly stable in all three parts of the country. For various newspapers, however, it is not even possible to make a year-on-year comparison this year: All titles with partial or complete large print runs are not comparable with previous years due to methodological adjustments. This includes almost a dozen newspapers (see page 18).The Sunday market in German-speaking Switzerland does not make a positive impression at first glance. Both NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsZeitung are on the list of significant losers. For the Sonntagsblatt from Falkenstrasse, 47,000 fewer
(-10.1 percent) and 41,000 fewer readers (-4.9 percent) for Tamedia. However, this downturn in the Sunday press was to be expected: In the previous year, the launch phase of NZZ am Sonntag and the simultaneous increase in marketing pressure for SonntagsZeitung brought many additional new (free) trial readers and trial subscribers.
Now that reader market activities have returned to normal
have been discontinued, these are no longer available. What remains now are the real Sunday readers, whose number in German-speaking Switzerland has increased by over 400,000 thanks to the NZZ am Sonntag.
Ticino shows just how much potential there still is in the Sunday market. There, the free title Il Caffè, in which Ringier has a stake, grew by a (non-significant) 6,000 readers (+6 percent), which is remarkable given the small population potential. In contrast, its right-wing competitor, the Mattino della Domenica, lost ground slightly, as in previous years.
Limited comparisonPrint media with a predominantly young audience are poorer
than in the previous year, even though they have not lost any readers. The reason for this lies in the adjustment of Mach Basic to the 2000 census. With the new basis, the Swiss-German potential in the 24-29 age segment has fallen by 200,000 in just ten years to
604,000. The extrapolation factor for weighting the sample therefore became significantly smaller. The resulting "losses" affected particularly young titles such as 20 Minuten.
However, another effect is more encouraging: school education has improved once again. In terms of living arrangements, single-person households have continued to increase.
All these changes mean that the data from the current Mach Basic are not comparable with those from previous years. In order to enable harmless comparisons at least with 2003, Wemf has also reweighted the 2003 figures according to the 2000 census for the trade press. These are used here.
Clarified significanceUntil now, it has been up to the recipients of Mach Basic to work out which deviations are statistically significant - which has always led to uncertainties. These have now been eliminated with Mach Basic 2004, as Wemf has now provided a list of the titles concerned. The chart "Tops and Flops" shows which titles are involved. It is striking that, with only one exception, all the significant changes are in German-speaking Switzerland.
Methodology of Mach BasicThe population of Mach Basic is the resident population of Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein aged 14 and over. The sample size (number of interviews conducted) is 23,637 in total. 17,008 of these are in German-speaking Switzerland, 5,571 in French-speaking Switzerland and 1058 in Ticino.
The computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted by Demoscope (Adligenswil), Link (Lucerne and Lausanne) and M.I.S. Trend (Lausanne). The survey period ran from April 7, 2003 to March 28, 2004 - excluding Easter and Christmas. (dse)
Daniel Schifferle
Apart from 20 Minuten and Le Matin, only the small St. Galler Nachrichten saw significant growth. On the other hand, the daily newspapers hardly suffered any losses this time. Among the top 20 losers, they are only represented by a single title, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. With its high loss of 27,000 readers (-7.9 percent), the paper seems to be making up for what the Tages-Anzeiger experienced in previous years.
Incidentally, the daily press was surprisingly stable in all three parts of the country. For various newspapers, however, it is not even possible to make a year-on-year comparison this year: All titles with partial or complete large print runs are not comparable with previous years due to methodological adjustments. This includes almost a dozen newspapers (see page 18).The Sunday market in German-speaking Switzerland does not make a positive impression at first glance. Both NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsZeitung are on the list of significant losers. For the Sonntagsblatt from Falkenstrasse, 47,000 fewer
(-10.1 percent) and 41,000 fewer readers (-4.9 percent) for Tamedia. However, this downturn in the Sunday press was to be expected: In the previous year, the launch phase of NZZ am Sonntag and the simultaneous increase in marketing pressure for SonntagsZeitung brought many additional new (free) trial readers and trial subscribers.
Now that reader market activities have returned to normal
have been discontinued, these are no longer available. What remains now are the real Sunday readers, whose number in German-speaking Switzerland has increased by over 400,000 thanks to the NZZ am Sonntag.
Ticino shows just how much potential there still is in the Sunday market. There, the free title Il Caffè, in which Ringier has a stake, grew by a (non-significant) 6,000 readers (+6 percent), which is remarkable given the small population potential. In contrast, its right-wing competitor, the Mattino della Domenica, lost ground slightly, as in previous years.
Limited comparisonPrint media with a predominantly young audience are poorer
than in the previous year, even though they have not lost any readers. The reason for this lies in the adjustment of Mach Basic to the 2000 census. With the new basis, the Swiss-German potential in the 24-29 age segment has fallen by 200,000 in just ten years to
604,000. The extrapolation factor for weighting the sample therefore became significantly smaller. The resulting "losses" affected particularly young titles such as 20 Minuten.
However, another effect is more encouraging: school education has improved once again. In terms of living arrangements, single-person households have continued to increase.
All these changes mean that the data from the current Mach Basic are not comparable with those from previous years. In order to enable harmless comparisons at least with 2003, Wemf has also reweighted the 2003 figures according to the 2000 census for the trade press. These are used here.
Clarified significanceUntil now, it has been up to the recipients of Mach Basic to work out which deviations are statistically significant - which has always led to uncertainties. These have now been eliminated with Mach Basic 2004, as Wemf has now provided a list of the titles concerned. The chart "Tops and Flops" shows which titles are involved. It is striking that, with only one exception, all the significant changes are in German-speaking Switzerland.
Methodology of Mach BasicThe population of Mach Basic is the resident population of Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein aged 14 and over. The sample size (number of interviews conducted) is 23,637 in total. 17,008 of these are in German-speaking Switzerland, 5,571 in French-speaking Switzerland and 1058 in Ticino.
The computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted by Demoscope (Adligenswil), Link (Lucerne and Lausanne) and M.I.S. Trend (Lausanne). The survey period ran from April 7, 2003 to March 28, 2004 - excluding Easter and Christmas. (dse)
Daniel Schifferle
