Newspaper & Mailroom
The Guardian and Scripps: Shaping the New Newspaper Business Model
Wednesday 31. March 2010 - Mark Contreras, Senior Vice President of E.W. Scripps Co., and Tim Brooks, Managing Director of Guardian News and Media Ltd., are helping to find the new business models for the future of newspapers.
Theyll share a stage, and their views, at the 63rd World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Beirut, Lebanon, from 7 to 10 June next.
Mr Contreras, the incoming Chairman of the Newspaper Association of America, and Mr Brooks, the Chairman of the Newspaper Publishers Association in the United Kingdom, will speak in a Congress session dedicated to new business strategies. They will be joined by Olivier Fleurot, the CEO of Publicis Group for Public Relations, Corporate and Financial Communications and Events Management and a former Chief Executive of the Financial Times, and Mohamed Alayyan, the Chairman of Al Ghad Newspaper in Jordan, a pioneer in multimedia development.
Mr Contreras is responsible for the newspaper division at E.W. Scripps, which operates daily and community newspapers in 14 markets and the Scripps Howard News Service. He recently cited these elements as influencing new newspaper business models: the evolution of behaviourally targeted advertising, the changing definition of relevant markets, stronger copyright and licensing protection, and creation of a uniform online audience standard.
Mr Brooks is responsible for Guardian Media Groups core division, which publishes its flagship national newspapers – the Guardian and the Observer – as well as the Guardian.co.uk website, which attracts more than 36 million unique users a month. With a focus on expanding audiences beyond the UK borders – the website has as many users in the United States as it does in the United Kingdom – the Guardian is expanding the definition of a newspaper in the digital age.
1,500 publishers, CEOs, managing directors, chief editors and other senior newspaper executives and their guests are expected to attend the Congress, 17th World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2010, the global meetings of the worlds press organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and hosted by the An-Nahar newspaper. Full details are available at www.wanlebanon2010.com.
Other confirmed speakers for the Congress include:
Torry Pedersen, CEO, Verdens Gang, Norway, which includes Norways most profitable and most read news site. Mr Pedersen is well known for recognising early that print and online news operations have different formats and different attributes and for exploiting these successfully. VG has been a leader in web-TV, user-generated content and other multimedia initiatives that have made it a magnet for consumers and advertisers alike.
Roman Gallo, the CEO of PPF Media, whose “Nase Adresa” (Our Address) in the Czech Republic is one of the most talked about hyper-local news projects in the world. PPF Media is in the process of blanketing the country with 200 different hyper-local weeklies, whose reporting teams are based in company “news cafes”. The combination of newsrooms and Internet bistros is designed to facilitate contacts with readers and potential sources (and also bring in revenue).
Per Bowallius, President of GISAB in Sweden, a Stampen Group company that has “conquered” the capital, Stockholm, with a string of suburban freesheets that ring the city and provides a compelling product for advertisers and readers alike. The company has found a new avenue to success in a highly competitive market.
The events will, as always, be accompanied by a rich social programme, tours, meetings with local and international political, business and cultural leaders, and more. Among the highlights: an opening cocktail at the Couvent St Jean, a convent on a hillside above the city; a Lebanese folklore evening on the Mediterranean in Byblos, said to be the oldest inhabited city in the world; and a gala closing dinner at the Beiteddine Palace, the former seat of the Lebanese Emirs.
Other highlights of the Congress include:
“World Trends in the Newspaper Industry: An Update”, the annual state of the industry address by Timothy Balding, Director General of WAN-IFRA Global Affairs.
Presentation of the best from the 2010 strategy reports of WAN-IFRAs major Shaping the Future of the Newspaper research project, analyzing developments and opportunities in the press industry.
The 2010 Global Report on Innovations in Newspapers by the Innovation International Media Consulting Group.
Annual round table seminars on press freedom (“Whats Ahead for the Independent Arab Press”), digital media (“Digital Futures 2010”), and young readership development (“Winning Strategies for Engaging the Young – Latest Strategies”).
A gala opening ceremony that includes presentation of the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize from WAN-IFRA. The 2010 Golden Pen will be presented to Iranian journalist Ahmad Zeid-Abadi.
A session on new content platforms, which will examine the surge in sales of electronic readers for books, notably tablets, and the multiplication of mobile devices with easy and comfortable access to news sites. These developments have given a new lease of life to the idea that wireless platforms may yet take a central role in news publishing. The session will examine current newspaper experiments in publishing on such devices and takes a whirlwind tour of whats now on the market.
The events will be opened by the Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri.