The year 2008 was bad and 2009 looks worse

Major Spanish media groups try to look good in every publication of hearing, or sales figures, but the heart is more. After multiplying each on the serious deterioration of the economy of the country, they discover in their turn are not immune from the crisis. The year 2008 was bad, and 2009 looks worse. Advertising revenues continue to decline, while the number sales stagnate. As publishers try to fill the shortfall in advertising within their selling prices and carving in the workforce.

The sector, which weighed 3 billion euros in sales in 2007, is passed under the bar of the 2.7 billion last year, with a fall of 13, advertising to EUR 1.3 billion. In the first half of 2009, the expenses of advertisers in the Iberian press collapsed by 33, to EUR 539.4 million. With the crisis, the Spanish, who already read few newspapers compared to their European neighbours, with 93 copies sold per 1,000 inhabitants (Unesco spoke of underdevelopment below a threshold of 100 units) have further reduced their purchases in kiosks. Despite promotion burst operations, sales are stagnating around 4 million copies. Until then, the appeals by the publishers association of Spanish dailies (Aede) to the Government to put in place for aid to the press, as is done in France, remained dead letter. Worse, Juan Luis Cebrian, the CEO of the Group Prisa, Publisher of "El Pais", the first daily newspaper in the country sold to 431.000 best accuses the authorities of having reduced by half its institutional advertising expenses.

2,400 post deletions

The time is therefore to restructuring. The Federation of associations of Spanish journalists (Fape) sales to more than 2,400 deletions of posts since November last in a profession that employs some 30,000 people. In February, free daily newspaper "metro" put the key under the door, putting unemployed more than 100 people. Its competitor "That has removed 100 positions". Its owner, the Vocento group, also brought iron in "ABC", the third Spanish daily with best 251.000, bringing the workforce of 450 to 234 employees. Among Prisa, also present in the audiovisual (Sogecable) and Edition (Santillana), rumour refers to the removal of 2,000 jobs from a total of 13.700, including a large part in Latin America. The editor has opened a one-stop departures and attempts to impose a reduction in the salaries of 8 in its editors. Unidad Editorial, his great rival, who edits including "El Mundo" (best 336.000) is separated from 180 employees. The entire chain of information is affected the image of the public information agency Efe who expects "significant losses" in 2009 as a result of a decrease in the number of its subscribers.

Efforts on the Internet with enriched but totally free sites does not bear fruit. And if Pedro Ramirez, Director of Unidad Editorial, repeat that "without newspapers, there is no journalism", the gloominess and self-criticism predominate. "Newspapers are a product of the past are realized in an archaic manner", said Juan Luis Cebrian. "We take the crisis to make the structural changes that we should have done before", he added. Other closures of newspapers, including in the financial press, with five titles, do not exclude...