Numbers, trends and scenarios on sales and not only of the major Italian newspapers. The post by Nicola Borzi, journalist expert in economics and finance, already in the Sole 24 Ore, taken from his Facebook profile
“Why buy newspapers
It is a sign of civilization to leave them on newsstands”, Massimo D’Alema explained to Prima Comunicazione in 1995. It took some time, twenty-five years, but the prophecy of the former prime minister has now dramatically come true. The Italians took him so much at his word that not even a pandemic like they hadn’t seen for a century and managed to revive the sales of the main national newspapers.
Even in April, according to the monthly statements of the publishers collected by Accertamenti Diffusione Stampa (Ads), newsstands certainly did not shine for queues of customers: all together, the newspapers surveyed by Ads registered just over one million 718 thousand paper copies sold in average every day, down by 24% on April 2019. But if in the midst of the coronavirus lockdown, the paper shoulder strap, the annual growth of 17% marked by the 219 thousand “valid” digital copies (those sold at least 30% of cover price of the paper) is certainly not enough to recover the waterline. Taken together, the hard copies and digital copies sold on average every day in April stopped at just over 1 million 949 thousand, down 20.8% on the two million 460 thousand a year earlier.
The list of newspapers in bad shape is longer than Leporello’s catalog of Mozart’s memory. Corriere della Sera, a Cairo-branded battleship at the helm of Luciano Fontana, sold a total of 215,776 copies between paper and digital in April, down 6.73% on an annual basis but up 2.84% on March. The Republic of the Gedi group, in the last weeks of Carlo Verdelli’s management before John Elkann’s expulsion with the arrival of Maurizio Molinari, did better by limiting the annual contraction of total sales to 4.24%, thanks to the boom of 21% of digital copies that have recovered 9.4% of paper copies, also achieving a good + 3.34% on the month of March. The same cannot be said for La Stampa (Gedi) which closed the month of the handover from Molinari to Massimo Giannini with 101. 984 total copies sold, down 16.74% yoy and 3.14% versus the previous month. Leading the bleeding was the collapse of sales on newsstands, which in April registered -18.94% at 92,948 copies.
IlSole24Ore continues to sink, which with Fabio Tamburini – the third director in three years – does not seem to be able to find any identity or appreciation: in April the salmon-colored newspaper of Confindustria (and of the creditor banks headed by IntesaSanpaolo) sold between paper and online 98,445 copies, down 14.71% on an annual basis and a minimal recovery of 1.73% compared to March. Here the collapse was all along the line: on an annual basis -18.95% paper sales, -8.55% sales of “valid” digital copies, -6.60% total sales of digital copies. Compared to March, despite the turbulence on the markets that were once the driving force of print runs, Il Sole has recovered only 156 hard copies and 845 more “valid” digital copies. Compared to April 2019, Il Sole sells almost 17 thousand fewer copies per day.
The Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), is also bad. The newspaper of the bishops in April sold 83,228 copies between paper and digital, down 18.7% on an annual basis and 6.7% on a monthly basis. But to make an impression and the swoop in the screwing of the Messenger: the newspaper of Caltagirone, once a symbol of the capital, in April remained at 60,085 copies in print and online. Compared to a year earlier, it has lost 28.94% of the total and even 32.27% of the paper ones. It will be enough to make ends meet the victory of director Vito Germano Virman Cusenza, who has been riding for eight years now, who on Sunday 31 May collected the state of crisis and the request to access 20 early retirements, over two days a month, from the Editorial Committee. of layoffs
Who smiles for the wind in your sails and instead Marco Travaglio: the director of Il Fatto Quotidiano in April reported the overall sales of the newspaper published by Seif to 53,589 copies, between paper and digital, with a growth of 33% on an annual basis and 25% on a monthly basis. Both the copies sold at newsstands (+ 5.94% on an annual basis, + 17.58% compared to March to 29,052) and the digital “valid” ones, almost doubled to 24,016 (+ 91.42% on an annual basis and + 35.73% on a monthly basis).
Bittersweet trend for Il Giornale of the Berlusconi family: the newspaper directed by Daniela Santanche’s ex-boyfriend Alessandro Sallusti in April recorded total sales of 41,854 copies, down by 8.79% on an annual basis but recovering by 7.42 % on March, thanks to the monthly recovery of paper copies (+ 4.13%) and the boom in “valid” digital ones (+ 76.62%). Vittorio Feltri instead smiles: in April Libero of the Angelucci family sold a total of 30,152 copies between paper and digital, marking + 20% on an annual basis and + 17.5% compared to March. The trend was positive for paper copies (+ 17.48% compared to April 2019), with the doubling of “valid” digital ones (+ 99.5%, 1,586 copies). La Verita holds the waterline: in April total sales of 24,638 copies, +1, 5% between paper and digital compared to the same month last year but -1.65% compared to March. For Maurizio Belpietro’s newspaper there was the paradox of the good trend on newsstands (+ 5.85% on an annual basis and + 9.42% on a monthly basis) ruined by the collapse of digital copies (sales -76.9% of those “valid” on an annual basis and even -89.5% on a monthly basis). The list is closed by the sad crisis of the Time of the Angelucci: the second Roman daily, directed by Franco Bechis, in April between paper and digital, recorded total sales of 8,719 copies compared to 13,704 the year before. A collapse that means -36.38% on an annual basis and -19.3% compared to March. For Maurizio Belpietro’s newspaper there was the paradox of the good trend on newsstands (+ 5.85% on an annual basis and + 9.42% on a monthly basis) ruined by the collapse of digital copies (sales -76.9% of those “valid” on an annual basis and even -89.5% on a monthly basis). The list is closed by the sad crisis of the Time of the Angelucci: the second Roman daily, directed by Franco Bechis, in April between paper and digital, recorded total sales of 8,719 copies compared to 13,704 the year before. A collapse that means -36.38% on an annual basis and -19.3% compared to March. For Maurizio Belpietro’s newspaper there was the paradox of the good trend on newsstands (+ 5.85% on an annual basis and + 9.42% on a monthly basis) ruined by the collapse of digital copies (sales -76.9% of those “valid” on an annual basis and even -89.5% on a monthly basis). The list is closed by the sad crisis of the Time of the Angelucci: the second Roman daily, directed by Franco Bechis, in April between paper and digital, recorded total sales of 8,719 copies compared to 13,704 the year before. A collapse that means -36.38% on an annual basis and -19.3% compared to March. the second Roman daily, directed by Franco Bechis, recorded total sales of 8,719 copies in April between paper and digital, compared to 13,704 the year before. A collapse that means -36.38% on an annual basis and -19.3% compared to March. the second Roman daily, directed by Franco Bechis, recorded total sales of 8,719 copies in April between paper and digital, compared to 13,704 the year before. A collapse that means -36.38% on an annual basis and -19.3% compared to March.