Communications Regulatory Authority

With regard to the latter aspect, the strategy adopted by the Italian leading
publishing groups is very clear. They are working on national or supra-regional editions
rooted in limited territories, going beyond the typical local page, in an attempt to
characterize more and more the daily newspapers as strong and competitive medium
which can ensure good penetration in the socio-economic fabric of the territory in which
it is circulated. The ways in which these strategies are carried out are different.
The initiative recently adopted by Poligrafici editoriale is very interesting. It
consists in managing leading daily newspapers strongly rooted in some Regions such as
“Il Giorno” in Milan, “Il Resto del Carlino” in Bologna and “La Nazione” in Florence,
by combining a national editorial office with a brand named “Quotidiano Nazionale”.
For quite some time the L’Espresso Publishing Group has been publishing
within “La Repubblica” a daily supplement included in the newspaper, having as
territorial reference the provincial capitals and, through Finegil, it has been managing a
series of local daily newspapers with its own name, some having a limited circulation,
in a large number of areas, with a single national desk and many local editorial offices.
More recently “Il Corriere della Sera” created newspapers having regional
editorial offices and topics (such as, for instance, “Corriere del Mezzogiorno” and
“Corriere del Veneto”).
Finally, agreements have been entered into for the creation of the so-called
“sandwich-newspapers”. This is a local newspaper strongly rooted in a territory sold in
compulsory combination with a national daily having a limited circulation in the area,
since, even being national it is being circulated almost entirely in the region of
publication. This is the path followed by “La Stampa”, “Il Giornale” and “Il
Messaggero”.
As already mentioned in previous reports, the publishing companies of the two
most important free dailies in Italy, “”Leggo” and “City”, are under the control the
former of the Caltagirone group, publisher also of the dailies “Il Messaggero” and “Il
Mattino”, the latter to the RCS group, publisher of the dailies “Il Corriere della Sera”
and “La Gazzetta dello Sport”.
The circulation of free daily newspapers appears to be of strategic importance
for these groups in order to identify users not covered by the circulation of traditional
daily newspapers.
Free press is creating new readers of daily newspapers, since a very high
percentage of them do not read other dailies, i.e. they are not readers taken away from
traditional daily newspapers on sale.
According to many observers free dailies are likely to introduce a different use
which is distinct from the reading of traditional daily newspapers, with a structure
similar to web navigation, using a publishing format in which the increased news
essentiality brings these newspapers close to press agencies and on-line press.
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