The national daily newspapers market: 950.000 distributed copies

The total market of the Romanian national newspapers raises to roughly 950.000 copies, according to the latest figures from the Romanian ABC (BRAT). 4 of the 6 greatest circulation newspapers belong to Ringier România, while the other two are owned by Intact (Dan Voiculescu).

The leader of the market, Libertatea, a Ringier title, sells roughly 270.000 copies and has a market share of 28 %, including free, sports, business, hungarian, or 43 %, on the purely general interest, sold at newsstands dailies. This more restricted market raises to 631.632 copies.

According to their sold circulation and other characteristics, the newspapers on the Romanian market could be divided into three cathegories: sexy young-mature, mid-life crisis and agonizing dwarves.

Market shares

Absolute figures:

Top of the Romanian audited newspapers (sold circulation)

1. Libertatea (Ringier): 270.428
2. Compact (Ringier): 147.476
3. Jurnalul naţional (Voiculescu): 90.985
4. Pro Sport (Ringier): 76.171
5. Gazeta sporturilor (Voiculescu): 72.427
6. Evenimentul zilei (Ringier): 71.291
7. România liberă: 56.295
8. Gândul (Sîrbu): 28.813
9. Adevărul (Patriciu): 25.335
10. Ziarul: 23.060
11. Ziua: 22.237
12. Averea (Patriciu): 16.496
13. Ziarul financiar (Sîrbu): 16.119
14. Curentul: 12.674
15. Curierul naţional: 7.034
16. Atac: 6.984
17. Sport total: 3.829
18. Uj Magyar Szo: 3.222
Total: 950.876
Total, without business, hungarian, sports, free: 631.632

BRAT (Romanian ABC) data. The figures represent the latest audit available, sold circulation, with the exception of the Compact free newspaper, where distributed copies are taken into account. Gazeta sporturilor, Pro Sport and Sport Total are sports newspapers. Ziarul financiar is an economic daily. Uj Magyar Szo is a hungarian-language newspaper. The rest of the publications are general dailies.

Figures for the purely general dailies market

By excluding the sports newspapers and both Ziarul financiar and Uj Magyar So, which refer to a determined audience, as well as the free Compact newspaper, the whole market raises to 631.632 sold copies for a total of 12 audited titles; Libertatea is a leader with almost 43 per cent of the market share. The titles with a share smaller than 5 % also have various difficulties and went through property or management changes.

Unaudited titles

The Romanian print media markets also include a number of unaudited titles, such as Cotidianul and Cronica română. According to unofficial sources, their circulation is less than 10.000 sold copies.

Interpretation: sold circulation and profitability

An unwritten law of the Romanian market is that a newspaper becomes a good business above the 50.000 sold copies limit. The daily newspapers market can be divided into three big categories:

1. Sexy young-mature: Libertatea, Jurnalul naţional, Evenimentul zilei. A tabloid and two general newspapers oscillating in the quality-mid market area which are clearly profitable. Age: 12-16 years, relaunched in the actual formula between 1997 and 2005.

2. Mid-life crisis: Romania liberă, Gândul, Adevărul, Ziua, Cotidianul. The age of these titles is roughly the same, with the exception of Gândul, which has been launched in 2005, but by a team that defected from Adevărul and tried the same formula consisting of long texts mixing opinion and information, with a conservative broadsheet layout. The common characteristics of these titles are in general low circulation, changes of management and repeated, but unconvincing face lifts. Both Adevărul and Cotidianul show some signs that they could leave the party.

3. Agonizing dwarves: Curentul, Curierul naţional, Cronica română, Atac. Appear to be hopeless, in terms of sold circulation, ownership and (lack of) reputation of managers. The various formulas tested led nowhere and one can wonder why such titles still are on the market.

5 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

1. [...] Am mai pus o sinteza de media la Comanescu.ro: piata cotidienelor, tiraje vandute si cote de piata, aici. [...]

   Pingback by HotNews » Piata cotidienelor — December 10, 2006 #

2. de ce la publicatia ziua nu e trecut omul care-l controleaza? /Why didn’t you mention the man behind Ziua?/

   Comment by alias — December 10, 2006 #

3. alooo! compact e moka! cum puteti sa-l treceti la “sold circulation”??? /Compact is a free newspaper. Why is it included at ’sold circulation’?/

   Comment by ilinca — December 10, 2006 #

4. In engleza, rogu-va, aici sunt si intrari de-afara.

   Ilinca: “Compact” is free, true, but it counts as “distributed circulation”. There is a narrower description of the market in pie no. 2, excluding Compact and other non-general interest daily newspapers (sports, business, hungarian). Anyway, I’ve changed the headline to ‘distributed copies’, although it’s not a common denomination and the non-free newspapers distribute slightly more than they sell.

   Alias: Speaking of Ziua and the owner, there are only allegations about Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu being in control, if that’s what you mean. The market description above can’t include them.

   Comment by Iulian Comanescu — December 10, 2006 #

5. Allow me an additional comment from Compact:
   Apart from the fact that we are obviously very happy with our market share in audited print runs, we also found out through research (Insomar while waiting for SNA in July) that not only we reach more than 600′000 readers every day in Bucharest, but we also reach different, younger readers than the average paid daily newspaper: 62% of our readership is under 34 years old and a big part of them is not reading any other newspaper. It seems that we are actually reaching our goal to make a newspaper for the young, urban generation who is otherwise not usually reading news on paper. Now we are eager to see what SNA will publish in July about Compact.

   Comment by Marco Stettler — February 6, 2007 #

Leave a comment