• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 10, 2003

Europeans Prefer Hardcopy Newspapers To Their Online Cousins

Europemedia.net reports that Europeans, especially Northern Europeans, enjoy reading newspapers but are less keen on the online versions, according to new analysis from market analysts at Forrester Research.

In Sweden, 29 percent of consumers read newspapers online, but other markets lag behind. Interestingly, across Europe, online readers often turn to their offline paper's competitors.

In most European countries, consumers read more than one newspaper several times per week. Swedish, Dutch, and UK adults are heavy consumers of news. Regional newspapers lead in all markets.

Mature online markets show strong contrasts. For example, the UK's leading tabloid, The Sun, struggles to get the online attention of news-hungry internet users, whereas Sweden's online Aftonbladet thrives. In the South, Italy's La Repubblica site is relatively well visited, while France's L'Equipe site isn't.

Newspaper readers switch brand online as well, with interesting cross-readership patterns between offline and online newspapers. Some 66 percent of online Guardian readers visit its online site, but 19 percent also visit The Sun's site - a newspaper that only seven per cent of them read offline. This type of brand switching holds true for all markets and all newspapers.

You can find out more here.