10 La Presse publisher touts all-in tablet strategy If you have not already done so, you absolutely must install and launch the La Presse+ iPad app. Whether or not you agree with its business model – free content PUBLISHING STRATEGY NOVEMBER /DECEMBER 2013 with revenue from advertising – the editorial and visual execution is spectacular. La Presse+ is addictive, which is refl ected in its usage statistics. The public launch has undoubtedly been successful, but Guy Crevier, president and publisher of La Presse, must now convince a large number of advertisers that this medium is worth the high ad rates it charges. WAN-IFRA: Since it was launched in April 2013, La Presse+ has been downloaded 305,000 times, and nearly 150,000 people use the application daily. How has this success affected your printed daily newspaper? Guy Crevier: Like the majority of Canadian daily newspapers, La Presse is primarily a subscription paper. Several months after the launch of La Presse+, we are registering two types of subscription cancellations: approximately 5000 subscribers have completely canceled their print subscriptions, and a corresponding share of subscribers have canceled their weekday subscriptions, keeping only the Saturday edition of the newspaper. Of the readers of La Presse+, nearly 28 percent are regular or occasional readers of the print edition. I am convinced that we shall witness a much more dramatic drop in the numbers of readers of the print product within the next 12 months. According to our calculations, the tipping point between print and tablet readership will be July 2014. Then La Presse+ will have more readers than the number of copies sold of the print edition. Readers will become accustomed to reading on the tablet and there will be a clearer shift from print. We are already registering a daily increase in the time spent reading on the tablet as well as the number of sections viewed. People are developing a new reading routine for La Presse+. The abundance of content and interaction possibilities on the application drives an incredible level of engagement on the part of the readers. Another important project is the announced launch of an application for Android, an environment that is less organised than that of the Apple Newsstand and App Store. How are you preparing for this launch? We plan to launch the Android application in spring 2014, and we hope to reach 80,000 regular users by the end of the year. We are already preparing ourselves from the marketing point of view. For example, we are negotiating partnership agreements with retailers. The aim is that they should offer consumers financing schemes for Android tablets at about the same monthly cost as a subscription to the print edition of La Presse. The promotional message would be that, for the price of the printed paper, people can get a tablet device and La Presse+, a much higher-quality information offering. Most news sites are seeing their mobile audiences challenging or even exceeding the level of traffic from the PC. La Presse+ has a smartphone version; is this important in your strategy? People spend nearly 35 minutes daily on our tablet application and 60 to 70 minutes at the weekend. As opposed to this, reading on smartphones is very quick; people “snack” on news. There is not enough engagement to increase advertising potential for smartphones, or for making a paywall work. There is very strong growth in the advertising spend on mobiles, but it is based on geotargeting and special offers for consumers. It is not happening in the regular news environment. Are you considering the possibility of launching paid applications, for specific topics, for instance? At present, our strategy is aimed at re-establishing ourselves as a mass medium, not a niche medium. I want my brand to shine; I want to have more influence on society. Today, if we had a pay-for business model we would have only 25,000 subscribers… Advertisers would ask us to come back to them when we had achieved critical mass. No one wants to produce ads for a niche medium, whereas today for La Presse+ we can approach everyone. La Presse+ scores very well in the 18-34 age target group. How did you set about reaching this sector of the population, which is less accustomed to your print brand? They do not account for a large share of the readers of our print product, but they did account for a large share of our website users. They represent a gigantic pool among the general population, and it proved sufficient to offer a platform to suit their consumption habits, to add depth without prolonging the reading time. The challenge facing daily newspapers is not that people do not want to be informed; quite the opposite. The problem is that for 10 years they have been telling newspapers that the way we offer information no longer matches their requirements. But they were not heard. We spend our time and energy as newspaper producers trying to stop the decline of print when the decline is inevitable. I am fully aware that, in order to produce highquality information, be relevant, have a presence everywhere, participate in discussions, and investigate, I need a 250-person newsroom in Montreal. That is why we are looking for a new model. If we became a niche medium we would have to cut our newsroom to 35 persons, and you cannot produce high-quality journalism with so few resources. During this transition period, your newsroom must satisfy both the needs of the print newspaper and the highly demanding requirements of La Presse+. This must make it a bit difficult on a daily basis… We still are effectively in a transition period, which is one reason we continue to employ 100 people in our laboratory. We still have a way to go to find new ways of telling stories on a tablet, to perfect the production tools we will use for editorial and advertising purposes. As far as the newsroom is concerned, it must be borne in mind that there is an astoundingly close relationship with the inhabitants of Montreal; they love La Presse+, and for www.worldnewspublishingfocus.org La Presse President and Publisher Guy Crevier presented the newspaper’s iPad app at the Tablet & App Summit 2013 in Berlin. At present, our strategy is aimed at re-establishing ourselves as a mass medium, not a niche medium. Guy Crevier, President and Publisher, La Presse
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