Press Releases

Press Releases - Press Releases

Brussels, 7th February, 2011 - The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) today called on technology companies to ensure that newspaper subscribers can continue to enjoy access to news content on tablets and other online services, without any restrictive conditions.

Newspaper publishers spoke out following indications by Apple in many European countries that it may bring in new conditions for both online subscribers to newspapers and also for print subscribers, who have until now enjoyed access to their newspaper on iPad. In future, consumers may only have access to the newspaper of their choice via the iTunes store, where the transaction would be subject to commission.

Moreover, newspaper publishers would no longer have access to important information about the readers of their digital publications.

In a statement, ENPA made the following points:

• Apple’s iPad and other tablet devices offer fantastic potential for the development of newspapers in the digital environment.  Publishers today want to provide readers with a range of attractive options, including offers combining access to newspapers online and on tablets, or offers for print subscribers that also allow access to the newspaper on digital formats.
  
  
• The business model of newspapers is dependent on publishers and editors knowing their readers. It is essential that this close connection is maintained. Without direct access to their subscribers, this vital bond between newspapers and readers would be broken, to the detriment of both.
  
  
• Newspaper publishers should have freedom of choice of payment systems for their readers and the possibility to negotiate pricing levels for their digital publications.

ENPA Vice-President and chair of Digital Task Force, Mr Valdo Lehari Jr said: “The print edition of a newspaper remains the engine room creating an incredible range of news and informative content. In the current environment, new online and mobile business models often operate in combination with the print edition.”

http://www.enpa.be/en/news/publishers-call-for-access-to-newspapers-on-tablets-for-subscribers-without-restrictive-conditions_56.aspx

Press Releases - Press Releases

Paris, 12 October 2010 –The Online Publishers Association Europe today announced the re-election of its executive board members. For the first time in the association’s history, the entire board was elected to a second mandate of 2 years.

Tomasz Józefacki	Nikos Gouraros	Giorgio Riva	Dominique Piteux

Mr. Tomasz Józefacki of Agora (Poland) remains OPA Europe President; Mr. Nikos Gouraros of Lambrakis Press (Greece) remains Vice-President; Mr. Giorgio Riva of RCS Digital (Italy) remains Secretary General and Ms. Dominique Piteux of The New York Times Global / International Herald Tribune in France remains Treasurer.

Re-elected President Tomasz Józefacki commented: “OPA Europe and its current executive board have brought about many accomplishments over the last 2 years, including new members in the UK and Turkey and the extensive redesign of our website. OPA Europe members are delivering innovative online advertising solutions to marketers who are trending away from traditional media towards innovative online brand advertising. And we continue to develop creative products and services in the area of video and mobile advertising”.

~ END ~

OPA Europe Press Contact: Ms. Amy Porter –

Tel: +33 (0)1 3054 4659             Mobile: + 33 (0)6 0959 8763         Email :   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

About OPA Europe:
Founded in 2003 by some of the European Internet's leading content brands, OPA Europe represents the interests of first-rate online publishers before the advertising community, the press, governmental and European institutions and the public at large. OPA Europe seeks to establish and promote the Internet as an effective advertising medium for marketers and a sustainable media business for publishers, thereby ensuring the continued availability of quality content to serve the public good.

Members of OPA Europe are: 24 Media (Greece), AdMeld (UK), Agora (Poland), Gruppo Espresso (Italy), International Herald Tribune/New York Times Media Group (Europe), Lambrakis Press (Greece), Le Monde Interactif (France), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy), Le Temps (Switzerland), Prisacom/El País (Spain), RCS Mediagroup (Italy), Turkuvaz Media group (Turkey), Unidad Editorial/El Mundo (Spain) and Spiegel Online (Germany).

Press Releases - Press Releases

New OPA Europe - comScore study leaves CTRs behind

Paris, 28 September 2010 – The Online Publishers Association Europe today announced the results of research done in partnership with comScore. “The Silent Click” study looks at the impact on European users after their exposure to online brand advertising, including searches performed on the advertisers’ brands and visits to their websites. Exposure to online ads had a dramatic effect on these actions: 42% of those exposed to online brand ads went on to visit the advertiser’s website, compared to industry-average Click-Through Rates (CTRs) of less than 1%. Users exposed to online brand ads were also more engaged with the brand, spending significantly more time on the advertisers’ sites and viewing many more pages than those who did not see the ads.

The study concludes that online brand advertising does indeed make an impact over time, just as offline advertising does, and shows that CTRs are essentially a Direct Response metric, making them inappropriate for judging the long-term effectiveness of online brand advertising.

The study also shows that online ad effectiveness varies based on the type of site on which the ad runs. In most of the 6 European markets covered in the study (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey), online brand ads seen on OPA Europe member sites have greater impact than those seen on other publishing sites or on portals.

Current OPA Europe President Tomasz Józefacki of Agora commented: “Everyone agrees that Click-Through Rates have gotten really low, yet they keep using this metric to measure online ad campaigns, and then complain that online branding ads don’t work. Our research shows something very different: that there are other, more pertinent metrics which prove that online brand advertising does indeed drive search behaviour and visits to brand websites as well as engagement with the brand. And advertisers now know that placing an ad on a high-quality publishing site makes that ad even more effective.”

For study results covering the aggregate of the 6 countries, please visit

www.opa-europe.org/resources/research/264-the-silent-click-building-brands-online-in-europe

(Individual country data is available only to OPA Europe members.)

~ END ~

OPA Europe Press Contact:

Ms. Amy Porter - ( +33 (0)1 3054 4659   - mobile + 33 (0)6 0959 8763   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

About OPA Europe:
Founded in 2003 by some of the European Internet's leading content brands, OPA Europe represents the interests of first-rate online publishers before the advertising community, the press, governmental and European institutions and the public at large. OPA Europe seeks to establish and promote the Internet as an effective advertising medium for marketers and a sustainable media business for publishers, thereby ensuring the continued availability of quality content to serve the public good. Members of OPA Europe are: 24 Media (Greece), AdMeld (UK), Agora (Poland), Gruppo Espresso (Italy), International Herald Tribune/New York Times Media Group (Europe), Lambrakis Press (Greece), Le Monde Interactif (France), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy), Le Temps (Switzerland), Prisacom/El País (Spain), RCS Mediagroup (Italy), Turkuvaz Media group (Turkey), Unidad Editorial/El Mundo (Spain) and Spiegel Online (Germany).

comScore Europe Press Contact:

Ms. Berit Block - ( +44 (0)203 111 1758   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

About comScore:
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. comScore helps its clients better understand, leverage and profit from the rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape by providing solutions in the measurement and evaluation of online audiences, advertising effectiveness, social media, search, video, mobile, e-commerce , and a broad variety of other emerging forms of digital behavior. comScore's capabilities are based on a global panel of approximately 2 million Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and purchase behavior. These data can also be combined with census-level Web site or telecom carrier data to provide the most comprehensive and unified measurement of digital activity. comScore services are used by more than 1,300 clients around the world, including global leaders such as AOL, Baidu, BBC, Best Buy, Carat, Deutsche Bank, ESPN, Facebook, France Telecom, Financial Times, Fox, Microsoft, MediaCorp, Nestle, Starcom, Terra Networks, Universal McCann, Verizon Services Group, ViaMichelin and Yahoo!. For more information about comScore and their recent acquisition of Nedstat, a leading provider of web analytics, visit www.comscore.com.

OPA Europe members represent, collectively, more than:

• 23 million unique visits daily
• 27 million sessions daily
• 200 million page views daily

Press Releases - Press Releases

European Media Business Calls On Politicians To Ensure Sustainability Of Creative Content Business In The Future

Brussels, 30 June 2010 – Today representatives of the European media business – including the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT), the Association of European Radios (AER), the European Publishers’ Council (EPC), the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA), the Association of Television and Radio Sales Houses (EGTA), the European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA), the European Association of Magazine Publishers (FAEP), and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) - gathered in Brussels to discuss about the future of the media in Europe. When holding their first joint event in the European Parliament entitled “European Media Revolution – Ensuring Viability”, the associations called on politicians and regulators to establish a regulatory environment in which free, independent, diverse and vibrant media will be sustainable in the future. The event has been hosted by Mary Honeyball, Socialist MEP from the United Kingdom, and speakers included media senior executives, several MEPs, an expert from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Neelie Kroes, Vice-President EU Commission & Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

In the current changing environment advertising remains a key revenue source for the content industry, helping to ensure high quality production and the independence of media which is crucial to its role in democracy. The media industry works hard to maintain advertising revenues in order to sustain the costs of production of European content which consumers value enough to spend time with or pay for directly.

In the light of the discussions about the Digital Agenda and the creation of a competitive EU as described in the EU 2020 Strategy, the undersigning associations call on politicians to take into account the following points:

• The media play a crucial role in democracy by informing citizens about political, economic, social and cultural issues, by entertaining and connecting viewers, listeners and readers.
  
  
• Advertising funds a diverse, pluralistic media landscape. Good content costs money and without advertising many of the world’s media would not exist.
  
  
• Self regulation across Europe ensures responsible advertising. Consumers are protected due to the self-regulatory system established in all EU Member States and at the European level.
  
  
• The close relationship between media and advertising benefits European creative industries. More than 63% of Europe’s TV broadcasting programming time is devoted to European works and over 36% to works by independent European producers. Also the European daily and periodical press provides quality content to its readers about relevant aspects of the everyday life. Commercially-funded radios constitute a unique network of small and medium- sized enterprises, contributing to cultural diversity, media pluralism, access to creativity and social inclusion in a ubiquitous and free-to-air manner.
  
  
• A disproportionate regulation of advertising or bans on advertising of certain products or imposition of specific advertising requirements (such as mandatory labelling-type information in advertising) will lead to a decline in revenues for all media across Europe. The regulatory framework needs to reflect technological changes and allow this complex market to provide services and content that consumers want.

Speaking at the event, Philippe Delusinne, ACT President & CEO RTL Belgium, said: “Our vision of Digital Europe is one in which professional content – news, sports, fiction, movies – retains its central role in the world of media and entertainment. This is also the vision of most politicians, I assume. And above all, it is also the preference of European citizens, watching professionally-produced content for 222 minutes every day. So encouraging commercial enterprises to earn money from selling advertising, and then to take the risk to reinvest revenues in content helps to shape the sort of digital economy we want”.

Panellist Olivier Fleurot, President of EACA & CEO of MS&L Group, said: “The big challenge from an advertising perspective is that traditional “push” marketing is being progressively replaced by conversations generated through social media. This is a bottom up, not a top down process. Brand perception is as much influenced by those conversations as by traditional campaigns. To succeed, advertisers must change the way they present themselves – they must be genuine, authentic, avoid greenwash for instance.
Our role as agencies is twofold – there is clearly a quantitative role, supplying advertising revenues to media on behalf of our clients. Perhaps more importantly, what agencies also have to do is ensure that the qualitative aspect of their work reflects the new demands of the public. Themes, that are at the top of the agenda for many consumers like sustainable development, force companies to re-invent their products, their services and their advertising. Agencies need to advise their clients on CSR issues and advise on how to communicate in a digital world”.

Nikos Gouraros, Vice President - OPA Europe, Director of Business Development - Digital Media Business Unit, Lambrakis Press SA representing the newspaper and magazine publishers associations ENPA, EPC and FAEP stressed: “In order to maintain a free, independent, diverse and vibrant press across Europe we need sustainable business models. Today at least 50% of our revenue in the printed press comes from advertising, the rest from cover price sales. Online the business model is more challenging as paying for content is less common than in the print world. This may change but meanwhile companies that rely only on advertising for their online revenues need to find almost 100% of their income from advertising to become profitable. The press is extremely vulnerable in economic terms as advertising revenues for the press online are nowhere near the levels needed to fund a viable publishing business. I therefore really hope that politicians in Brussels do not undermine the vibrancy of the press in Europe by bringing in any advertising bans or restrictions.”

Stefan Möller, AER Vice-President, and Finland’s RadioMedia Managing Director, recalled: “On-air broadcasting radios reach massive audience on a daily basis in all EU Member States: between 60 and 85% of the EU population on average listens to radio for at least 2 or 3 hours per day. Commercially-funded radios can only broadcast their programmes free of charge to millions of European citizens, thanks to the revenues they collect by means of advertising. The only viable business model for radio nowadays and for a foreseeable future is analogue FM broadcasting of free-to-air programmes. Advertising is the prerequisite to make radio the most intimate medium currently, and the fundament to ensure its digital development”.

Download the complete .pdf:  Joint_Press_Release_-_European_Media_Business_on_Advertising_in_the_Future_-_30_June_2010.pdf