MEDIA MARKET DATA - World Association of Newspapers

esults," Syrjanen said. The company's share price fell 2.6 percent to euro20.12 (US$25.40) inlate afternoon trading in Helsinki. Sanoma-WSOY predicted that sales would increase by 4percent during 2006 and that profits would improve, based on forecasts of strong economicgrowth in its main markets in the Nordic region and eastern Europe. The Helsinki-basedcompany also said that media advertising was expected to grow by some 1-5 percent inwestern Europe and by as much as 13 percent in the Czech Republic and 17 percent in Russia.Last year, SanomaWSOY's magazine division acquired Independent Media Holding B.V., aleading Russia-based publisher of glossy magazines, including local editions ofCosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, FHM, Russian-language business daily Vedomosti andthe English-language newspapers The Moscow Times and the St. Petersburg Times. It alsolaunched several magazines in Russia during the first quarter, including SmartMoney and"Gloria, a woman's weekly. In 2001, the Finnish group bought the magazine operations ofDutch publisher VNU NV for euro1.25 billion (US$1.5 billion). Syrjanen noted that almosthalf the company's net sales come from outside Finland and said SanomaWSOY will continueto increase its foreign operations. In March, the company acquired a majority holding in LangKiado es Holding Zrt, a leading Hungarian educational publishing group, and bought a 51-percent stake in AAC Global, a provider of language training and translation services inFinland and Sweden. SanomaWSOY is one of the five largest magazine publishers in Europewith 220 titles and operations in 12 countries. It was formed in 1999 with the merger ofFinland's leading newspaper publisher, Sanoma Corp., and the country's biggest publishinghouse, WSOY. Besides magazines and books, SanomaWSOY publishes several newspapers,including the Nordic region's largest broadsheet, Helsingin Sanomat, with a daily circulationof some 430,000. It also has strong assets in electronic media, and employs some 17,600people -- an increase of 11 percent on last year.http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060504/finland_sanomawsoy.html; May 4, 2006IrelandIndependent News & Media magnate Sir Anthony O'Reilly increased his personal stake in thepublicly quoted company, amid speculation he is trying to ward off an approach from anotherIrish millionaire, Denis O'Brien. O'Reilly, the chief executive of INM, now owns 26.39% ofthe company after exercising around £3m worth of share options to acquire 2.7m shares. INMwas surprised back in January when it was revealed that O'Brien had built up a 3% stake inthe company. He had bought 22.6m shares for an outlay of £40m since November. The twomen have a history of business rivalry, which developed into bad blood. Five years ago, theywere on opposing sides in the takeover of Irish telecommunications company Eircom, withO'Reilly winning the day. In 2003, O'Brien complained in an interview with The Irish Timesthat O'Reilly's newspapers had made "outrageous allegations against me and my companies".O'Brien, who owns a Caribbean mobile telecommunications business called Digicel andstakes in radio stations in Dublin and Europe, has refused to comment on his reasons forbuying into INM.http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/media/article/553654/independents-oreilly-upspersonal-stake-rivals-move/;April 13, 2006JordanAl Ghad newspaper is the first independent and private daily in Jordan. It was launched inAugust 2004. Eighteen months later, according to Ipsos Stat Jordan, it is one of the country'sleading newspapers, with a circulation of more than 55,000. Almost 70 per cent of its readersare subscribers; an unusual figure for papers in the region. “We chose to employ a uniqueapproach to penetrate the market, so instead of having readers buy Al Ghad off newsstands,they can now find it on their doorstep every morning before any other newspaper,” says Ala’a2