Here’s an interesting idea from Spain: call it a “tween” paper. Publico is a new, paid daily that sits between the free dailies and the traditional paid-circulation papers. According to the Shaping of the Future of the Newspaper blog:
The new half-price daily, Publico, has 64 colour pages, and will feature larger pictures, more graphics and shorter articles than its paid competitors. It is also larger than the 20-some page free dailies that are so popular in Spain, according to a report by AFP. It will cost 50 (European) cents, compared to 1 euro, which is what most paid papers cost.
Publico is starting off with a print run of a quarter-million copies and is aimed at the same young urban readers that have been the targets of the freesheets. (That press run compares to 2.37 million readers for the freesheet 20minutos, and 2.18 million readers for the paid daily El Pais.)
This could be an interesting experiment. When I was in Barcelona last spring, I was impressed by the large number of commuters reading 20minutos. I would think that a larger (but still graphically bold and easy to read) newspaper that costs less than a cup of coffee stands a chance of taking readers — and advertisers — away from both the freesheets and the traditional dailies.
There’s no word I can find on how large the editorial staff is, or whether the source of the arts-, science- and sports-centred coverage is coming primarily from staff or from the wires. But if they can sell half the print run, that’s a not insubstantial 125,000 Euros a day in gross revenue coming in.
TAGS: NEWSPAPERS, BUSINESS, PAID, FREESHEETS, SPAIN
