The World: EMS survey provides welcome news for media

to slash its international edition's circulation and ad rates.

And yet the latest figures from the European Media & Marketing Survey of
the continent's most affluent executives provide some welcome news for
print, international media's largest sector.

In the core EMS survey, which monitors the media habits of the top 13
per cent of Europe's highest earners, only four of the 17 major titles
surveyed gained readers in 2005 (ironically, one of them was the now
defunct Forbes). But in EMS Select, which covers a more valuable group
(Europe's wealthiest 3 per cent), five titles recorded reader gains. And
crucially, two of them were the Financial Times and The Economist.

The FT, which recently reported an annual profit for the first time
since 2001, saw its EMS Select readership rise by 48,000 readers, to
34.3 per cent of Europe's richest. At The Economist, meanwhile,
readership grew by 1.3 per cent, to 22 per cent of Europe's C-suite.

"The two barometers of international media have created a bit of blue
water for themselves," Jason Hayford, an international account director
at Initiative, says. "This maybe a reflection of a fundamental change in
the way Europeans see the wider world in which we do business: Europeans
are now seeking European coverage of global business."

Olly Comyn, The Economist's director for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa, adds: "If it was a peaceful world, we probably would not be
doing so well, and the stepping back of BusinessWeek and Forbes will
have helped us a bit. That said, a booking in the international titles
left will still reach 50 of the upscale audience advertisers want."

Elsewhere, there is comfort to be taken from a gradual ebb rather than a
collapse of readerships. Reader's Digest, down 1.3 per cent, was the
biggest faller in the main EMS survey, while Time lost the most EMS
Select readers, down 1.7 per cent. "Some years are good, others aren't;
Time has dropped back from an exceptional base in 2004,"Mike Jeans, the
research director of Time and Fortune, says. "On the whole, as dull as
it sounds, the sector is stable, which it has been since EMS began in
1995."

Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel were the
strongest-performing TV brands, hinting at a growing appetite among
business travellers for entertainment as well as news. "In a hotel room,
you'll soon get bored of rolling news on the war on terror, and want
some lighter relief," Hayford muses. Both channels recorded the biggest
monthly and weekly viewership leaps in both surveys.

BBC World emerged as the fastest-growing news channel, while the
dominance of the market leader, CNN, is showing signs of waning. BBC
World, which has grown every year since EMS launched, added a 0.5 per
cent share in both surveys. CNN lost 1.6 per cent of the EMS Select
audience, but held firm in the broader survey.

"Getting distribution deals in new markets has helped us," Carolyn
Gibson, BBC World's vice-president of sales in Europe, the Middle East,
Africa and the US, says. "But it's more to do with what's going out on
the channel.

We have an infrastructure three times the size of CNN's, with 65 foreign
bureaux and 2,500 journalists, and that does have an impact on what you
see on screen."

The next EMS survey may see the addition of the monthly World Business,
a collaboration between Haymarket and Insead, launched in April. "We
welcome World Business," Comyn says, but warns: "A monthly business
magazine is a tough thing to get right and, like all of us, it's
competing for people's time. From a media planning point of view, it's a
question of how far the budget will stretch, and when times get tough,
the titles on the fringe always drop off the schedule."

TELEVISION (weekly viewing)

PETV channel % reach % growth % reach % growth

EMS vs EMS EMS vs EMS

2006 2005 Select Select

2006 2005

Eurosport 32.4 1.3 33.9 0.7

MTV 27.8 -0.1 27.9 0.3

Arte 24.9 0.3 22.1 -0.6

CNN International 19.2 0.2 25.3 -1.6

Discovery Channel 18.1 2.0 20.7 2.5

Euronews 17.8 0.9 19.6 0.2

Sky News 14.7 1.5 20.4 0.4

National Geographic 13.9 1.3 15.8 1.1

BBC World 11.9 0.5 16.2 0.5

CNBC 7.1 0.1 9.9 0.0

Travel Channel 6.7 0.4 7.6 0.6

Bloomberg TV 6.1 0.4 9.5 -0.1

Fashion TV 2.3 -0.4 2.2 -0.7

Deutsche Welle 1.7 0.0 2.2 0.0



Source: EMS/EMS Select 2006 by Interview-NSS.

EMS represents the top 13 per cent highest earners (universe is 40

million); EMS Select represents the top 3 per cent highest earners

(universe is 8 million) in 17 European countries.



PRINT (readership past 12 months)

Title % reach % growth % reach % growth

EMS vs EMS EMS vs EMS

2006 2005 Select Select

2006 2005

Time 17.3 -0.8 27.7 -1.7

Financial Times 16.5 -0.1 34.3 0.5

National Geographic (UK) 15.8 -0.5 22.8 0.9

Reader's Digest 15.3 -1.3 16.0 -1.6

Newsweek 12.6 -0.1 22.4 0.9

The Economist 10.8 -0.1 22.0 1.3

USA Today 8.0 0.0 16.0 -0.9

Intl Herald Tribune 7.9 0.4 14.8 -0.9

BusinessWeek 5.7 -0.4 13.4 -0.7

Wall Street Journal Europe 5.1 -0.2 11.3 -1.2

Scientific American 3.7 -0.3 5.7 -0.1

Fortune 3.2 0.2 7.7 -0.4

Forbes 3.1 0.2 6.8 -0.6

Harvard Business Review 2.9 -0.1 8.2 0.0

The Business 1.8 0.0 2.9 -0.7

Euromoney 1.4 -0.6 3.4 -0.6

Institutional Investor 1.1 -0.2 2.9 0.5



Source: EMS/EMS Select 2006 by Interview-NSS.

EMS represents the top 13 per cent highest earners (universe is 40

million); EMS Select represents the top 3 per cent highest earners

(universe is 8 million) in 17 European countries.