Innovation on Web and Paper Key to Guardian's Future
Paris, 16 March 2006--The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom drew a lot of attention when it converted to Berliner format last September, but the success of the smaller version is only half the story.While developing the smaller format, the Guardian was also focusing on its online version -- and the combination of innovations in print and on the web is at the heart of its strategy.
Guardian Unlimited was named the world's best newspaper on the internet last year at the Webby Awards, which some call the "online Oscars." The print move now means "we will have the most modern newspaper in the world," says Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive of Guardian Newspapers, who says innovation is a "core value and a brand attribute." She will present the group's approach at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Moscow, Russia, from 4 to 7 June next.
Ms McCall, who titles her Congress presentation, "Innovation: How Guardian Newspapers Changed Everything Except Our Values in Just 12 Months," believes that "no other newspaper is so well placed to address the print and internet needs of both readers and advertisers."
At least 1,500 newspaper publishers, CEOs, managing directors, chief editors, and other senior executives and their guests, from all over the world, are expected to attend the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2006, the global meetings of the world's press.
Full details about the conferences, organized by the World Association of Newspapers, are available at http://www.moscow2006.com
Other Congress speakers include:
- Mathias Döpfner, CEO and Chairman of Axel Springer, Germany's biggest newspaper publishing company, who says that traditional media are threatened by the aging of society and the loss of young readers to digital media. In a presentation entitled, "Future of Newspapers - Newspapers of the Future," he will suggest two ways out of the "assumed newspaper crisis" -- a "tight interlocking of online with print", and "good old newspaper start-ups" such as his group's Welt Kompakt in Germany and Fakt in Poland.
- Pelle Tornberg, Executive Director of Metro International, the free daily giant, who contends that free dailies will one day replace paid-for newspapers on weekdays, with 95 percent of the paid-fors surviving as niche products that readers will buy only at weekends.
- Les Hinton, Executive Chairman of News International, which is leading a spending spree by the UK's national newspapers of well over one and a half billion dollars on new printing plants. This act of faith in print products and their future does not imply that News International is neglecting digital media -- it owns some of the most popular websites in the market.
- Karen Ferguson Crotchfeld, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development for The Arizona Republic, which has launched 20 new products, both in print and on the web, in the last three years. Ms Crotchfeld calls it an "audience aggregation strategy" that focuses on providing "multiple products across multiple mediums with an insane focus on serving specific target audiences."
- Sanjay Gupta, Editor and CEO of Dainak Jagran, which is the daily newspaper with the highest number of readers in the world -- more than 21 million, according to the latest Indian readership survey. He will present the newspaper's strategies in circulation, marketing, branding, revenue models and competition.
- Katie Vanneck, Group Marketing Director, and Annelies van den Belt, New Media Director, of the Telegraph Group in the United Kingdom, which believes that the integration of print and online is going to be a key success factor in the future of the newspaper business. The group is managing its transition to the digital media age within a traditional media context, in the belief that the effective combination of print and digital is far stronger than either part alone.
- And many more. Full details, including programme information, a list of participants and online registration information, can be found at http://www.moscow2006.com
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 73 national newspaper associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr
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