Axel Springer plans to launch French tabloid

by Joanne Payne, Brand Republic 16-Feb-07, 10:40

LONDON - Axel Springer, publisher of popular German tabloid Bild, is to invest €120m (£120m) into launching a tabloid in the French market, which will have to contend with France's tough privacy laws.

The plans include a three-year investment of €120m and Axel Springer believes it can sell a million copies of the tabloid a day.

The French version of Bild is yet to be named and will come up against its nearest rival Le Parisien, covering politics, daily life, sport and celebrities. However, the publisher plans to undercut Le Parisien by €0.40 by charging only €0.50 (34p), close to the 35p The Sun sells for in the UK.

The launch is planned for the second half of 2007 and Axel Springer is currently recruiting a staff of 300 to work under the editorship of Remy Dessarts, former head of the publisher's French business unit and Didier Pourquery who launched the successful Metro in France, based on the blueprint Swedish freesheet.

The title will have to contend with France's strict privacy laws that effectively ban the types of photographs and gossip that traditional tabloids, such as The Sun and Bild, sell newspapers on.

Distribution may cause a problem as well. Nouvelles Messageries de la Press Parisienne, is dominant in the French press distribution system and it is controlled by newspaper publishing cooperatives. The NMPP has just 28,000 newspaper sales outlets in France, compared with 120,000 in Germany, where Bild currently sells 3.5m.

Axel Springer is looking for widespread distribution network around the country and sources within the publisher say management want readers to be able to buy the tabloid alongside everyday goods in local retailers.

The launch comes as part of a busy programme of international expansion that has seen the publisher push out across Europe.

In December Axel Springer paid €325m for a 25% stake in Dogan TV, a Turkish broadcaster, and its Russian subsidiary plans to launch OK! Russia. In April, Axel Springer launched Dziennik, a title for young professionals in Poland. In 2003 it launched the tabloid Fakt which is now the country's best selling daily.

In 2004 it was linked to a bid for Telegraph Group and five years prior to that it considered buying The Daily Mirror as part of its plan to expand outside its domestic market.