Power of Print Conference: Know your audience, serve it best
Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on May 28, 2009 at 11:10 AM
BARCELONA - Knowing your audience is the key to success on any platform, as newspapers presenting at the World Association of Newspapers' Power of Print conference in Barcelona showed Thursday.
Francis Matthew, editor-at-large of the Gulf News in the UAE; Fergus Sampson, CEO of emerging markets at Media24, which owns The Daily Sun, in South Africa; and Tim Wall, editor-in-chief of the Moscow News, Russia, all represented their own vastly different publications that have one thing in common: they are succeeding in print thanks to fitting with audience needs' perfectly.
Francis Matthew, editor-at-large of the Gulf News in the UAE; Fergus Sampson, CEO of emerging markets at Media24, which owns The Daily Sun, in South Africa; and Tim Wall, editor-in-chief of the Moscow News, Russia, all represented their own vastly different publications that have one thing in common: they are succeeding in print thanks to fitting with audience needs' perfectly.
Gulf News
Print is "alive and well" in the UAE for three main reasons:
The Daily Sun, Media24
Just five years after its launch, Media24-owned The Daily Sun grew to become the largest newspaper in South Africa, with a circulation of 500,000, all by finding, understanding and staying loyal to an under-served, and even non-served audience, said Fergus Sampson, CEO of emerging markets at Media24.
The newspaper's success, however, has less to do with editorial, advertising and circulation, and more to do with The Daily Sun seizing the opportunity that opened up thanks to a confluence of circumstances happening in social, political and economic realms in South Africa in the 1990s, in the time following the fall of apartheid.
The newspaper became a voice to lead them, and teach them things they didn't know, but needed to know for their new lives, such as where to go to school or how to manage their money, Sampson said. It also needed to be affordable and accessible.
Moscow News
The oldest English-language newspaper in Russia, and once known as the mouthpiece of Stalin, the Moscow News is now as editorially independent as is possible in Russia.
Owned by Ria Novosti news agency, the paper has gone "from Stalin's mouthpiece to Russia's wakeup call," said Tim Wall, editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
The weekly changed itself, and peoples' views of it, by covering controversial issues, including fun and interesting content, such as a sex column and make Russian culture accessible to expats living in the country, he said.
Print is "alive and well" in the UAE for three main reasons:
- Reporting
- Classifieds
- Distribution
The Daily Sun, Media24
Just five years after its launch, Media24-owned The Daily Sun grew to become the largest newspaper in South Africa, with a circulation of 500,000, all by finding, understanding and staying loyal to an under-served, and even non-served audience, said Fergus Sampson, CEO of emerging markets at Media24.
The newspaper's success, however, has less to do with editorial, advertising and circulation, and more to do with The Daily Sun seizing the opportunity that opened up thanks to a confluence of circumstances happening in social, political and economic realms in South Africa in the 1990s, in the time following the fall of apartheid.
The newspaper became a voice to lead them, and teach them things they didn't know, but needed to know for their new lives, such as where to go to school or how to manage their money, Sampson said. It also needed to be affordable and accessible.
Moscow News
The oldest English-language newspaper in Russia, and once known as the mouthpiece of Stalin, the Moscow News is now as editorially independent as is possible in Russia.
Owned by Ria Novosti news agency, the paper has gone "from Stalin's mouthpiece to Russia's wakeup call," said Tim Wall, editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
The weekly changed itself, and peoples' views of it, by covering controversial issues, including fun and interesting content, such as a sex column and make Russian culture accessible to expats living in the country, he said.
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