{"id":335,"date":"2009-05-03T18:50:32","date_gmt":"2009-05-03T17:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newmediatrends.fdim.dk\/2009\/05\/wrap-up-the-danish-free-newspaper-war-in-a-%e2%80%9cfree%e2%80%9d-perspective.html"},"modified":"2013-02-25T21:06:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T20:06:27","slug":"wrap-up-the-danish-free-newspaper-war-in-a-free-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wrap-up-the-danish-free-newspaper-war-in-a-free-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrap-up: The Danish Free Newspaper War in a \u201cFree\u201d perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Tuesday Chris Anderson and I discussed his new book \u201cFree<\/a>\u201d (scheduled for release in July). The book is about why and how the ever-declining costs of storage, bandwidth and processing power leads digital goods and services to a new modus operandi in which marginal costs of producing and selling are in effect zero.<\/p>\n

This marks a shift from the physical to the digital economy. If you\u2019re into digital, you now have what no-one else have had before:\u00a0the possibility of producing and giving away your digital goods and services without inflicting any costs on yourself.<\/p>\n

And this mere possibility, argues Chris, creates a force actually drawing prices to zero,\u00a0leaving you to find other ways of making money on your product or services.<\/p>\n

Chris and I\u00a0had dinner in Oslo, where we were gathered for the Gulltaggen conference (Chris were giving a keynote presentation the next day). \u201cHave you ever heard of the Danish Free Newspaper war?\u201d I asked Chris when the subject came to “Free”. \u201cIt\u2019s an example of \u201cfree\u201d in the physical world\u201d I continued and added: \u201cThough it ended up a catastrophe for all parties involved\u201d.<\/p>\n

While eating us through small pieces of Japanese style fish,\u00a0moose in pastry and deep-fried crab I told him the story. And promised to make a wrap-up in English.\u00a0So here it is:<\/p>\n

\u201cDouble free\u201d<\/strong>
\nOn October 6 2006 \u201cNyhedsavisen\u201d, a new Danish daily newspaper hit the streets. A quality newspaper staffed with 100 journalists and ambitions of being the largest Danish newspaper with a daily circulation on 500.000 and 1 million readers (total Danish population equals some 5,5 million). The newspaper should feature an editorial mix prioritizing both prize-winning critical journalism and stories close to the everyday life of ordinary Danes.<\/p>\n

The prizing of Nyhedsavisen was simple: it was free. And, as something entirely new: it was (intended) to be delivered to the homes of all Danes \u2013 without any costs. Not only the newspaper itself was free, delivery was free as well. It was in effect \u201cdouble-free\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe front-page of an October 2006 edition of Nyhedsavisen<\/p>\n

Icelandic intrusion<\/strong>
\nBehind the Nyhedsavisen launch was the Icelandic media group Dagsbrun owned by Icelandic investment company Baugur group. During 2005 Dagsbrun had researched the European market in order to find the most suitable country in which to try to duplicate the success of Icelandic newspaper Frettabladid. And Denmark was chosen.<\/p>\n

Frettabladid was founded in 2001 and had managed to be the best-read newspaper among the Icelandics (population totaling 320.000) battling the only other Icelandic newspaper Morgunbladid by employing for the first time the \u201cdouble-free\u201d model.<\/p>\n

The business model<\/strong>
\nNyhedsavisen (and Frettabladid) are in this way examples of \u201cFree\u201d in the physical world. But in the physical world the laws of zero-marginal costs doesn\u2019t apply. On the contrary: printing and delivering newspapers to new households is very expensive. So how come the zero-kroners prizing?<\/p>\n

The answer is that the Nyhedsavisen business model were build on having others to pay. To be more specific Nyhedsavisen aimed at three different revenue streams, the first one being the traditional newspaper model, where advertisers pay to have ads in the newspaper. If you’re able to\u00a0get 1 million Danes to read your newspaper, you’re able to sell those eyeballs to advertisers as well.<\/p>\n

The second revenue stream also aimed at advertisers, but not by offering advertising in the newspaper itself. Instead, Nyhedsavisen would take advantage of the fact is had a direct contact to all Danish households before 7 in the morning. Nyhedsavisen would take what would normally have been a cost \u2013 the distribution \u2013 and turn it into an independent revenue-stream, making money from distribution of printed advertisement catalogues and brochures alongside the distribution of Nyhedsavisen itself.<\/p>\n

The third revenue streams would stem from the other Danish media. Out of the 100 journalists, 35 were employed at the news network part of Nyhedsavisen, a bureau in the newspaper which should deliver and sell news wire services to other Danish media.<\/p>\n

Flooded with newspapers
\n<\/strong>Nyhedsavisen thereby aimed to compete the entire existing Danish newspaper industry, including the three large nationwide dailies Berlingske Tidende, Politiken and Jyllandsposten, the two nationwide tabloid-papers Ekstra Bladet and BT and the existing free daily newspapers delivered through public transportation or handed out on the streets, MetroXpress and (Berlingske owned) Urban.<\/p>\n

And all of these took the threat seriously, and decided to fight the intruder in an attempt to defend their position on the Danish media market.<\/p>\n

Right after the initial announcement of the to-come double-free newspaper, Berlingske Tidende (the oldest Danish newspaper, first published 1749) answered back launching their own \u201cdouble-free\u201d newspaper, \u201cDato\u201d. This they did on August 16 2006, some two month before Nyhedsavisen would\u00a0eventually launch. Berlingske thereby introduced their free newspaper number two, the first being the \u201csingle-free\u201d Urban (which again was launched in 2001 in response to the launch of MetroExpress).<\/p>\n

The day before, however, the regional daily Nordjyske introduced two free newspapers on top of the paid daily Nordjyske. Centrum\u00a0Mi\u00f3rgen was single-free, distributed in the morning traffic, whereas\u00a0 Centrum Aften was\u00a0freely delivered in the afternoon in northern part of Jutland. The day after (august 17) the publisher behind Politiken, Jyllandsposten and EkstraBladet, JP\/Politikens hus launched their double-free daily \u201c24 timer\u201d. And on August 21 MetroXpress launched an afternoon-edition in supplement to the usual MetroXpress morning edition.<\/p>\n

When Nyhedsavisen finally arrived, Denmark was flooded with newspapers. On top of my paid subscriptions I\u2019d now find both Nyhedsavisen, 24timer and Dato in my mailbox, and on my way to work I\u2019d be able to read both Urban and MetroXpress in the metro. On my way home, I\u2019d be able to read the afternoon-edition of MetroXpress.<\/p>\n

The immediate effect of all this was twofold: the average Dane was getting weary of all the paper he suddenly was forced to have inside his home \u2013 and the price of print advertising went down in response the massive growth in supply.<\/p>\n

Casualties and deaths
\n<\/strong>This free newspaper war went on for over two years and caused the entire industry to bleed. \u00a0On top generally declining circulation for all (paid) printed newspapers the cost of producing and distribution additional free newspapers added significant losses to the financial results.<\/p>\n

Berlingske which was bought by British Mecom i early 2006 was barely profitable i 2006 (revenue in the surroundings of 650-700 million USD)\u00a0and decided in 2007 to back out of the war closing down their double-free Dato, realizing losses of 35 million USD. (Though Berlingske maintained their single-free Urban, thereby participating in the attempt to both drain money the Danish mediamarket and\u00a0offering yet free alternative to\u00a0Nyhedsavisen).<\/p>\n

MetroXpress\u00a0shot down their afternoon edition\u00a0after only three months, with losses of some 1 million USD.<\/p>\n

After one year Nordjyske eventually also gave up on their Centrum Aften double-free,\u00a0and\u00a0merged Centrum Morgen with 24timer.\u00a0(The Nordjyske engagement in the war however tried out a completely new initiative, editorially combining several print- and webtitles in a very interesting combination – for more see this post<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Show-down: Nyhedsavisen vs. 24timer<\/strong>
\nThis\u00a0left 24timer and Nyhedsavisen alone on the scene, trying to wear each other down.\u00a0Nyhedsavisen were backed by the Icelandic investors, claiming they had “enough” money to carry on to the bitter\u00a0end.\u00a0In 2006, 2007 and 2008 the revenues of JP\/Politikens Hus totalled a little more than 600 million USD, with\u00a0EBIT of respectively\u00a0+20 million USD, -25 million USD and -30 million USD, wearing the equity down\u00a0 some 25 % to aprox. 125 million USD in 2008.<\/p>\n

The costs of producing and distributing the double-free newspaper\u00a0was – at least\u00a0during 2007 – around 200.000 USD\u00a0a day for each of the papers.<\/p>\n

The free delivery was one of the main obstacles, the engaged parties faced. It simply turned out for all of them to be extremely difficult\u00a0to manage\u00a0delivering the newspaper at peoples home before 7 in the morning. As a consequence JP\/Politikens Hus gradually shifted the distribution of 24timer to the single-free handing out in the morning traffic. In march 2008 this shift was total.<\/p>\n

This partial surrender from 24timer came after Dagsbrun\/Baugur group in January found themselves forced to back out of the Danish market. Instead of abandoning Nyhedsavisen altogether, however,\u00a0a new majority-investor, Morten Lund, entered the scene. Apparently 24timer didn’t find it necessary to keep up the pressure, reasoning a traffic-distributed existence would do enough harm eventually to kill Nyhedsavisen off.<\/p>\n

In may 2008 24timer merged with MetroXpress. At that time Nyhedsavisen actually had managed to bring down the cost of delivery to some 20 cents per issue, only 25 percent more than the corresponding cost of distributing the newspapers in the traffic. But little it helped: on September 1, 2008 Nyhedsavisen was no longer able to pay its bills, and was declared bankrupt.<\/p>\n

Today we’re left with but two remains\u00a0from the Free Newspaper War: 24timer still lives on, partly owned by JP\/Politiken, who by that token got itself what it didn’t have before: a single-free newspaper. But also the website of Nyhedsavisen – avisen.dk<\/a> – has its own life, now under the auspecies of Danish social network-publisher Freeway and a-pressen, the media division of the Danish Labour movement (!)<\/p>\n

Could the \u201cdouble-free\u201d model have worked?
\n<\/strong>Despite the fruitless attempt to prove the double-free business model during the two years of free newspaper war, the conclusion is not entirely clear. Surely it didn\u2019t work. But it might have functioned under other, less hostile, circumstances.<\/p>\n

Particularly: the revenue streams from the traditional newspaper-advertising model dried out for Nyhedsavisen due to the fierce competition on the media market in which the excess of supply ensured radicularly low prices. Also the markets suspicion that Nyhedsavisen might not be able to make it also discouraged media agencies from engaging in longer-term Nyhedsavisen-campaigns.<\/p>\n

Also, the distribution services never got to work: At first Nyhedsavisen was planned to be distributed in a joint venture with Post Denmark, the official Danish Post, who \u2013\u00a0on top of their knowledge and professionalism in distribution \u2013 had access to an essential asset: keys to all doors of the houses in the large cities. The use of these keys,\u00a0however, was deemed illegial by the Danish Competition Authorities (after JP\/Politiken and Berlingske had filed their complains \u2013 while these two ironically entered into their own agreement on swapping keys with one another). Also the massive demand for paperboys to actually deliver all the free newspapers around Denmark caused severe problems for the distribution (all the players were forced to import immigrant-labour from primarily Poland, who\u00a0then worked\u00a0their way around Denmark by night, trying to make sense of the signs in the streets in order to figure out their routes in order to deliver the free newspaper in their trolleys correctly).<\/p>\n

Taking into account that the third revenue stream \u2013 the news network delivering and selling news wire services to other Danish media \u2013 for various other reasons didn\u2019t turn out a cash-cow either, Nyhedsavisen was in effect left with no revenues at all.<\/p>\n

— — — —<\/p>\n

During the free newspaper war\u00a0I covered the events in a series of posts, especially focusing on the newmedia-aspects of the war (which I have not dealt with\u00a0in my wrap-up).\u00a0Here’s a number of them:<\/p>\n

19-04-2008: 24timer goes social – fully incorporates social network Mingler<\/a><\/p>\n

19-02-2008: Freeway.dk goes portal – encapsulating avisen.dk content<\/a><\/p>\n

19-01-2008: Standing Danish newspaper-war at (internetbased) turning point?<\/a><\/p>\n

10-10-2006: Doc Searls: \u201cNordjyske\u2019s really innovative\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

04-10-2006: Avisen.dk: First fullsize preview<\/a><\/p>\n

03-10-2006: The three drivers of the current media explosion<\/a><\/p>\n

21-08-2006: When the going gets tough, Nyhedsavisen starts blogging\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

23-08-2007: Wikiscanner, Mahalo and avisen.dk: the web strikes back<\/a><\/p>\n

14-08-2006: Sneak preview – now they\u2019re really here – Nordjyske\u2019s new newspapers and website<\/a><\/p>\n

04-07-2006: \u201cNyhedsavisen\u201d in aggressive online-move – presumably<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Tuesday Chris Anderson and I discussed his new book \u201cFree\u201d (scheduled for release in July). The book is about why and how the ever-declining costs of storage, bandwidth and processing power leads digital goods and services to a new modus operandi in which marginal costs of producing and selling are in effect zero. This… L\u00e6s mere »Wrap-up: The Danish Free Newspaper War in a \u201cFree\u201d perspective<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,7,9],"tags":[11,21,23,26,27,30,41,51,66,67,68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3659,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/3659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jon-lund.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}