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Newspaper sales drop in Italy: report

Sophie Inge
Sophie Inge - [email protected]
Newspaper sales drop in Italy: report
Will newspapers soon be a thing of the past? File photo: pedrosimoes7/Flickr

The future of Italy’s newspaper industry is looking increasingly bleak following reports that newspaper sales have plummeted by one million in the past five years.

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A new analysis by Fieg, Italy’s federation of newspaper and magazine publishers, also reveals that 2012 was the worst year for newspaper advertising in two decades - dropping in just 12 months by 14.3 percent.
 
The report singles out several causes for the state of the Italian newspaper industry. These include: the current financial crisis, technological advances that promote the web, and problems with distribution.
 
Online newspapers, meanwhile, are continuing to grow – with a 5.3 percent rise in advertising last year. Their revenues, however, aren't enough to make up for the steep decline of daily print newspapers.
 
These recorded a nine percent drop in revenue, while magazine revenues fell by 9.5 percent in 2012. Overall, sales of daily papers fell by 6.6 percent in the same year, while weeklies fell by 6.4 percent.
 
According to the latest survey by Audipress, which carries out polls on the publishing sector, there was a 14.8 per cent drop in daily-newspaper readers in 2012.
 
Italian news agency ANSA quotes Fieg President Giulio Anselmi calling for “radical reform” of the Italian press “to prevent the expansion of new media from threatening traditional outlets”. 

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