Germany’s papers are doing fine despite the ad flight to the Web. What’s their unrevealed?

by Jack Ewing

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Diekmann: Mobile phone users get unlimited surfing if they stay tuned to Bild online Oliver Mark/Agentur Focus/Contact

Here’s a scene you slip on’t see at many U.S. papers these days. The publisher settles into his office sofa, glances over his protuberance at the bustling chief city below, and says casually: “We’re doing good!”

True, there are definitely more aspects of the occupation original at Bild, a Berlin daily with 12 million readers, that might not fly in the U.S. (the photos of nude women on page 1, for example). Still, it’s worth asking publisher Kai Diekmann how, when U.S. newspaper revenue is going off a clift, Europe’s largest paper managed to have its most profitable year eternally in 2007.

It’s not as suppose that Bild hasn’t been blow by the same problems as U.S. papers, including advertisers lost to the Web. So it’s tempting to credit Bild’s double-digit benefit margin solely to sensationalism. The day I met Diekmann, Bild’s leadership story concerned managers of public health-insurance funds helping themselves to willing Viagra. One of the top online stories asked: “Which female celebrity has the nicest breasts?”

But Germany’s prestige papers are doing reasonably well, too. National-affairs diurnal Die Welt, a chronic money-loser that, like Bild, is part of the Axel Springer government, made the first profit in its 60-year history last year. “I wouldn’t affirm we don’t own challenges, but we are not intimately as hard-hit by the advertising crisis as the U.S.,” says publisher Peter Wurtenberger.

Even accounting for the quirks of the local market, Bild and other German papers are doing something seemly. For an American print guy like me, it was a bracing actual observation to inspect a newsroom where the journalists don’t look like they’re ready to jump out the window. The lesson seems to be that there are ways for papers to outlive the shift to digital if they’re resolution to take risks.

Germany’s gazette industry had its admit existential crisis in 2001 when that country’s management tanked. Ad revenue slumped, and papers did all the painful things their U.S. counterparts are doing now, such being of the class who cutting staff and getting used to new owners. In retrospect, the turning point had its upside.

It forced German papers to take a hard look at their businesses before the Web started to hurt swollen time. Staunchly ashen Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung risked alienating readers by the agency of printing garble photos upon the body the front serving-boy and launched a sassy Sunday edition. The measures helped stop a glide in readership. Die Welt created a tabloid edition that helped temptation younger readers. And the papers dared to raise prices. Even Bild, aimed at a working-class audience, in July boosted its newsstand price by 20%, to about 90 cents in most markets. The hikes, along with digital revenue, helped twig the loss in ads.

German papers also took advantage of how slowly Europeans embraced the Web, which gave editors a chance to learn from U.S. mistakes. Bild used a partnership with Deutsche Telekom, Germany’s biggest Internet provider, to gain a foothold online at minimal cost. Now most of Bild’s Web readers go straight to the site the sooner than via a search engine or portal. Diekmann says YouTube (GOOG) is sufficiently impressed to mull working together.

I’m impressed by the way Bild is staking out the mobile Web. Via a participation with Vodafone Group (VOD), Bild became a mobile-phone provider, selling prepaid airtime at the corresponding; of like kind newsstands that sell the paper. Bild Mobile gives customers unlimited surfing and downloads as long as they stay tuned to bild.de. That’s a compelling plan of conduct to withhold users glued to your site, and it has made Bild Germany’s No. 1 expressive Web news destination.

I suspect the real understanding German papers still thrive is their embrace of competition. Unlike so many U.S. papers, Bild was never part of a quasi-monopoly that allowed complacency. It’s powerful that Bild doesn’t deliver —it depends on newsstand sales. “Bild has to prove itself at the kiosk every day,” says Deputy Editor-in-Chief Michael Paustian.

That pressure helped Bild maintain its focus on original content. It uses almost no wire copy and brags that every story is each exclusive. Even for the period of the crisis years, Bild kept its 800-strong editorial cudgel intact. What advice does Diekmann obtain for American newspapers? “It’s too late.”