MEDIA MARKET DATA - World Association of Newspapers

the same figure as its competitor. Both newspapers of the same small format and the samenumber of pages are distributed near public transport, targeting the young active urbanpopulation. ‘Le Matin Bleu’ was launched by the Lausanne group Edipresse, which owns thethree best-selling paid-for dailies in French-speaking Switzerland (24 Heures, La Tribune deGenève and Le Matin), as well as 41% of the newspaper Le Temps. AFP, March 8, 2006SwitzerlandSwitzerland, home to one of Europe's most important financial centres, is poised for thelaunch of its first purely economic daily newspaper later this year. But the launch of the freejournal Cash Daily in the autumn will add pressure to its sister weekly newspaper Cash in analready highly competitive market, according to media observers. Project leader Hans Ott toldswissinfo that it is about time Switzerland had a daily journal dedicated to its financialcommunity. Cash Daily will initially be launched in the German speaking part of the country."Switzerland is the only country in central Europe with no daily economic newspaper. Wehave been thinking of doing this for many years because Switzerland has a very strongeconomic market," he said. "Nobody knows precisely why Switzerland has not had one yet,but one reason may be that the readership is too small. We did not think there were enoughpotential readers for a paid edition." Switzerland has three weekly economic newspapers incirculation; Finanz und Wirtschaft, Cash (weekly) and Handelszeitung as well as a monthlymagazine called Bilanz. And with stiff competition from the free morning newspaper, 20Minutes, Roger Blum, director of Bern University's Media and Communications Institute,believes something will have to give. One of the most likely casualties is the weekly editionof Cash, he believes. "The launch of Cash Daily may be the death of Cash weekly becausethere is not enough room in the market for everyone," he told swissinfo. "Cash weekly hashad problems in recent years attracting advertising like many other newspapers. Cash Dailymay be the answer to these problems. However, Ott argues that the new daily edition of Cash,far from damaging its weekly stable mate, will boost readership of the weekly newspaper."Cash Daily will give a surface view of the days' economic stories. Readers will go to theweekly to get the background and a more in-depth insight, so the daily will promote theweekly edition." Ott also believes the new journal will be sufficiently different from its mainrivals to avoid a circulation war. "There will be more competition with 20 Minutes becauseboth are free, but we expect only a small overlap with readers. Cash readers are a bit bettereducated and we don't want to alienate them." Blum thinks Cash Daily should avoid being toohighbrow to avoid a clash of styles with the prestigious Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)newspaper. "The NZZ economic section is very serious with a lot of details. Most people inthe financial markets use NZZ for their analysis. Cash Daily will be a more popularconsumer-directed newspaper," he said. Cash Daily will be available at train and tramstations, street distribution points and sent to companies on demand all over Switzerland. Buta major part of the Cash Daily project will be the simultaneous launch of an accompanyingwebsite. Publisher Ringier has set a target of around one million weekly contacts (circulation,viewers and hits) for the Cash family of weekly and daily newspapers, television channel andwebsites – around double its present benchmark. Ott is confident that the paper can reach100,000 readers with the website making up the bulk of the contacts. "We want to make thenewspaper of the future not just tied to the printed version, but also using the internet," hesaid. "The Cash readership is the youngest of the economic newspapers and is verytechnology minded. Most of our readers will have a computer on their desk with a broadbandinternet connection."http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/detail/Tight_squeeze_for_first_financial_daily.html?siteSect=105&sid=6619492&cKey=1145339804000; April 18, 200640