Identifying Trends for the Future of Newspapers

The list of 66 trends provided by eight newspaper executives will serve as the centrepiece for a "scenario planning" workshop, to be held in Paris on 29 and 30 January,  and in a report on the future of newspapers. The report, to be published by the WAN Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, will emerge from the workshop in which two dozen media executives will meet to exchange ideas on the direction of their businesses.

The trends, which touch on everything from aging demographics to expanding media choices to globalisation, will help shape the workshop debate.The full list of trends can be found at

http://www.wan-press.org/scenarioplanning/articles.php?id=1118 .

Here are just a few of them:

- Infotainment, with games, DVDs, tickets, samples and other non-traditional products becoming an increasingly important component of the media offering.

- Changing demographics, with more single households, older people and non-traditional families.

- Growing choice, with an infinite number of options making it hard to decide what products and services to buy.

- User-generated content that provides opportunities for self-expression and social interaction.

- Consumer power, where the customer is taking control over brands and information flows on the internet.

- Mobile devices becoming faster, smaller and user-friendly.

- The growing importance of social networks.

- Multi-channel strategies and the diminishing differences between types of news media.

The trends were gathered for WAN by Kairos Future, a Stockholm-based futurist consultancy that will conduct the scenario planning workshop and prepare the report. The publishers, managing directors, CEOs and presidents who contributed to the list include: Janet Robinson of the New York Times, David Kirk of Fairfax, Nelson Sirotsky of RBS, Brazil, Tomas Brunegard of the Stampen Group in Sweden, Olav Mugaas of Schibsted in Norway, Eugen Russ of the Vorarlberger Nachrichten in Austria, Francis Tiong of Ming Pao newspapers in Hong Kong, and James M Moroney III of the Dallas Morning News.

"The trends will be used as the catalyst for the scenario planning process,"

said Martha Stone, Director of the SFN project, which identifies, analyses and publicises all important breakthroughs and opportunities that can benefit newspapers all over the world.

"They describe current trends on our business that are likely to have a certain degree of importance in the future," she said. "We will focus on the most important trends and the most important uncertainties and use them to build possible scenarios for the future."

The Scenario Planning report, which will be provided exclusively to WAN members, will explore the sweeping changes in the newspaper business, and provide detailed plans addressing each issue. Among the industry challenges to be explored are: advertising competition; cover pricing models; monetising digital media; escalating fixed costs; a hostile investment landscape; misinformation about the state of the press; and more.

WAN conducts the SFN project with support from five international partners

-- PubliGroupe, the Swiss-based international advertising and promotion group; MAN Roland, a leading company for newspaper production systems; UPM-Kymmene, one of the world's leading printing paper producers; Telenor, the leading Norwegian telecommunications, IT and media group; and Atex, the world¹s leading provider of content management software and services to the global media industry.

More on the SFN project can be found at http://www.futureofthenewspaper.com

For more on the Scenario Planning workshop, go to http://www.wan-press.org/scenarioplanning/programme.php

The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom and the professional and business interests of newspapers world-wide. Representing 18,000 newspapers, its membership includes 77 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and

11 regional and world-wide press groups.

Inquiries to:

Larry Kilman, Director of Communications,

WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France.

Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00.

Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48.

Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36.

E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr

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