By Marjorie Meyer
One of the hot topics at the moment here in France is the fate of Groupe Tests, a leading publisher in the IT sector recently acquired by NextradioTV. Groupe Tests has the Sword of Damocles over its head and is to undergo a major restructuring by getting rid of six magazines (Micro photo vidéo, Univers Mac, 01 Réseaux, Décision Informatique, Décision Distribution and 01DSI).
Although the World Association of Newspapers claims newspaper circulation around the world is globally healthy despite the boom of digital media, it looks like this isn’t necessarily the case in Europe, with circulation in France having dropped 5.7 per cent in five years. Nevertheless, the free dailies are doing well and have comprehensively invaded the metro.
However, NextradioTV has also inherited 01net.com from Groupe Tests - one of the most visited French websites - with the aim to “reinforce its Internet activity leadership”. No doubt, so will others. Thanks to the explosion of Web 2.0, the Internet is proving very attractive to editors and is now an integral part of their strategy.
For instance, 20minutes.fr recently declared that it wants to be more than just an online newspaper and will invest 10M€ to achieve this goal. Similarly, Lagardère Active decided not to launch new magazines this year – instead, it prefers to concentrate on its web activities, and is hiring 150 new people to do this.
This is truly a media revolution. Remember, it was only a few years ago that many publications in France didn’t even have a website. Now, it’s commonplace across all media categories, and it’s often possible to read the entire content of a publication on the web. We can even do this offline via an e-book reader and this is sure to contribute further to the Internet's growing popularity with the media.
The impending disappearance of the Groupe Tests publications makes me think that the glory days of magazines and newspapers may be over. I’m not saying that print press will disappear altogether, but it is no longer the main focus of media as it once was. And as a result, it seems to me that both readers and PRs are heading towards a very new type of relationship with the press.
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