France

Sarkozy’s print media rescue plan: newspaper subscriptions for teens

Article published on the 2009-01-23 Latest update 2009-01-24 16:25 TU

Nicolas Sarkozy
(Photo: Reuters)

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a rescue plan Friday for France’s ailing print media including measures to save on printing and distribution costs as well as a more creative idea: a free newspaper subscription for every French person when they turn 18.

“The habit of reading the press starts very young,” Sarkozy explained, say the idea was “to permit all 18-year-old young people to celebrate the year of their full citizenship with a free subscription to a daily of their choice.”

Following a months-long industry consultation, which produced a series of recommendations, Sarkozy announced that the government would be investing 600 million euros over three years into the country’s print media.

The plan includes pushing back a postage hike on print publications for a year, announced tax benefits to retrain people working in printing shops, and offered subsidies for distribution to news kiosks and for home delivery.

Dealing with writers' intellectual property rights was the last sticky issue to come out of the consultation process. The president proposed shifting rights from one payment per article to one payment per 24-hour period in order to encourage multimedia and journalist that work in multiple media at the same time.

France’s newspapers and magazines started seeing their fortunes go south in 2000. A combination of the emergence of new, free competition from free dailies distributed in the Metro, and the growth of the internet, as well as diminishing advertising revenues has spelt disaster for France’s traditionally strong and diverse publications.