Roularta to publish more often as profits fall
Publishing group Roulatra closed 2008 with profits down 13.7% to €13.8 million, with the magazine division showing especially poor results. The company’s reaction? More magazines! From June this year, the company’s flagship news magazine Knack will appear twice a week instead of once, on 18 occasions spread throughout the year. The same strategy will apply to the company’s French-speaking equivalent Le Vif-L’Express, starting in September.
The new issues will avoid holiday periods, and will each follow a theme such as science or health, and be published on Fridays (weekly Knack appears on Wednesday). The price of a subscription goes up €18 a year.
Roularta’s sales fell 1.9% over the year, with the printed press division, which accounts for three-quarters of sales, suffering from the widespread decline in advertising. Job advertising suffered particularly hard. Elsewhere the company’s French activities were restructured, which affected the balance sheet negatively for last year. The printed press sector saw profits fall to €1.15 million from €8.8 million the year before.
Roularta CEO Rik De Nolf had two contributions to make to the States-General of the media, which took place last week organised by Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters. The government could best support the media by advertising rather than by giving subsidies, he said. And support could also come in the form of changes in the tariffs charged by the Post Office; Roularta is currently the Post Office’s biggest single customer.
The States-General was called by Peeters following a wave of planned redundancies at major media organisations including Corelio (De Standaard, Flanders Today) and Persgroep (De Morgen). The latest meeting included representatives from all sides of the question: companies, journalists, academics and others.
