The Fundamental Flaw In That Dandy French Idea Of Giving 18-Year-Olds A One-Year Newspaper Subscription For Free Is That Old Adage That You Can Lead A Horse To Water But You Can’t Make It Drink

Philip M. Stone January 27, 2009

At least France’s President Sarkozy is trying to help the newspaper industry which is a lot more than can be said for many other world leaders, but the fundamental flaw in having the government pay for the delivery of a free one-year newspaper subscription for 18-year-olds is whether they actually will read what is given to them?

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Ask teenagers and the 20-30 something crowd why they don’t read newspapers and price is far less important than timeliness of content.  For all the things that print can do the one thing it cannot do is to keep up with the Internet’s constant updating of news and as long as newspaper publishers insist on giving away their news for free on the Internet there really is very little incentive for the digitally-enabled young to read a newspaper.

Regular readers of this column will recall the exchanges this writer had with his then 20-something son when Dad tried to do pretty much the same thing as Sarkozy is now proposing -- provide a daily paid-for newspaper for free. The young man, in as polite a manner as he could muster, turned down the offer explaining that all of his knowledge needs were fulfilled by reading the Internet before going to bed and there was no need to waste time reading stale news in the morning printed paper when he got up. Maybe he’d go to the newspaper’s web site for the latest information, but read the print version – no way!

So while under Sarkozy’s plan publishers can at least get their newspaper in the hands of the young that’s not the real issue, rather it’s getting that youngster to read it once he has it.

Sarkozy hopes getting the18-year-old used to reading a newspaper will become a habit for the ensuing years, but in fact that’s a habit that needs to be taught much earlier in life. The best example of what to do came from no less than California Governor Arnold Swarzenegger who told the Los Angeles Times back in 2006 that he and his wife “are teaching our children to read the paper in the morning. We started with their favorite section, with Patrick it’s sports. One of the girls looks for the fashion thing, and the other looks for movies. We’re teaching them that when they get up in the morning and come down and make breakfast, read a page. Whatever your favorite page is, we want to create this thing that gets you addicted to it.” Now if only more households would get into that act at early ages!

The World Association of Newspapers at its 2008 Congress in Sweden held a session about how to get young print readers and the basic answer from experts ranging from an anthropologist to researchers who talked to kids seemed to be that if you can’t get them into the print habit at a very early age then you’re probably not going to get them. And the primary recommendation was to do exactly what the Swarzenegger family is doing – get them into the newspaper reading habit real early.

So, part of President Sarkozy’s statement last week was right on the money –“The habit of reading the press starts very young.” But while it sounds like a nice idea “to permit all 18-year-old young people to celebrate the year of their full citizenship with a free subscription to a daily of their choice,” if he really wanted to do some good maybe that delivery should go to households that have young children so they can get in the habit of reading the newspaper well before they reach age 18.

For a variety of reasons we’ve explained fully in the past (see our Knowledge File on Media in France) French national newspapers for many years now have been terrible money losers, and that’s in spite of huge government subsidies. Sarkozy has announced an increase in those subsidies so that, in addition to the free newspaper for the 18-year-olds, he is rolling back  for a year a mail hike for print publications, he’s doubling  the amount of government advertising in newspapers – a favorite French way of supporting the media (More than 40% of Agence France Presse’s   income comes from French government ministry subscriptions),  reducing social taxes for newspaper delivery workers, and  providing even greater than before tax breaks for investing in digital media. In all he’s offering an additional €200 million ($260 million) in each of the next three years on top of the annual €1.5 billion ($2 billion) newspaper subsidy

But there is a catch and it actually gets to the heart of why French newspapers lose money --- they have been strangled for years by legacy union agreements on the production and distribution sides and those unions have made it very clear in the past they’re not about to give up the good life – they are very powerful and would not hesitate to call work stoppages even if they just felt the threat of a threat.  Sarkozy has told the publishers – many his close friends – they have to clean up that particular house, like getting those costs reduced by some 30-40% which probably means beaucoup job losses. Good luck on that one! There will be great carnage which is why publishers have turned basically a blind eye in the past – will an additional €200 million ($260 million) a year give them the stomach (and war chest) for the fight?

The French are not avid newspaper readers. They much prefer their weekly fashion and news magazines (with lots of pictures)  – magazine readership per 1,000 population is said to be the world’s highest with near 60% of the population reading a magazine weekly, and the French are among Europe’s most avid radio listeners, but when it comes to newspapers they are near the bottom of the European pole with just 46% reading a daily newspaper, way below, for instance, Germany where the figure is closer to 80%.

Newspaper subsidies are not infrequent in Europe – in Denmark, for instance, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced just last week that newspapers will continue to receive state funding even though tax reforms are now being discussed that will eliminate newspaper VAT exemption. “I can well assure you that the government currently has some direct and indirect subsidy plans for print media,” adding he would consider it a major social loss if newspapers were to die. In 2007 print media received 1.5 billion krone (€200 million, $260 million) in state subsidies, most of it to aid distribution. 

Sarkozy’s cri de Coeur should be heard in various capitals: “It is the state’s primary responsibility to respond to an emergency, and there is an emergency caused by the impact of the collapse of advertising revenue.”

It may not be the only “emergency “out there, but will our society really be better with the loss of the printed newspaper?  It’s a lot more than just saving trees!