Europe’s business elite may have cut back on travelling and personal investments but they are consuming more media according to the latest Business Elite: Europe Survey*.

50% of the respondents had visited an international media owners’ website, up 7% on last year, and 80% had watched an international TV channel in the last week, up 17% on 2008.

Of the TV channels included in the survey, all 8 had shown an improvement on last year with CNN International posting a weekly reach of 15% of the survey’s sample, Sky News 14.2%, the Discovery Channel 12.6%, BBC World News 11.3% and National Geographic 10.5%.

The Weekly titles proved to the most resilient of the print sector with most titles on a par with or slightly above last year’s reach figures.  The Economist posted a 12.3% reach, Time 7%, BusinessWeek (recently acquired by Bloomberg from McGraw-Hill) 4.7% and Newsweek 4.5%.

Of the monthly titles, Harvard Business Review led the way with a reach of 9.4%, National Geographic posted 8.5%, Euromoney 2.7%, Bloomberg Markets Magazine 2.6%, Institutional Investor 1.6% and Scientific American 1.4%.

The Financial Times led the dailies with a reach of 14.7%, followed by the Wall Street Journal Europe with 2.3%, the International Herald Tribune with 1.7% and USA Today with 1.6%.  Reach of all daily titles, with the exception of the FT, dipped slightly on last year.

The figures are good news for the media owners and good news for those luxury advertisers who resisted the temptation to make significant cuts to their budgets and will have benefited from not only an increased reach in this economically important audience but also from a greater share of voice.

*The Business Elite Europe Survey is conducted on a sample of over 7,000 senior executives across 17 European countries and is widely used for planning corporate business and financial campaigns.

By: Karen Stephenson

Posted in International, Offline Media | No Comments »

3 of the world’s most influential news and business publishers have re-launched their offering to capture a wider audience in Europe and beyond.

The Wall Street Journal Europe is to launch a marketing campaign to support its new look newspaper which includes new features, new columnists and a new front page design, combined with a more simplified layout. The publication is also planning on launching a series of eight-page special reports highlighting European topics.

The campaign, aimed at C-suite executives and business travellers in key European cities and timed to support the re-launch on 17 November is part of a ‘new, focused circulation strategy aimed at Europe’s business elite, giving advertisers greater efficiency of reach among a top audience of influential and affluent business decision-makers’ according to WSJ. 

Due to the new European initiative, the printing and distribution of the US edition of the paper in London will cease. “We’re focusing all our efforts and investments on the European edition so it becomes the sole voice of The Wall Street Journal in Europe,” said Andrew Langhoff, publisher of the Wall Street Journal Europe and managing director, Dow Jones Consumer Media Group Europe.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg TV has introduced a new on-air look and made a number of key personnel additions. On-air Andrea Catherwood, a former senior foreign correspondent and presenter with ITN, joins as London anchor and off-air Steve Clark, the former head of news at Al Jazeera English, and Malcolm Fried, former Bloomberg News executive editor in London, join as Head of Pr`oduction and Programming and Managing Editor respectively.  The moves are designed to lengthen its broadcasting day and broaden its appeal. 

Bloomberg’s growth strategy is focused on developing international markets – its growth in 2009 has been based on its success on increasing its English-language distribution across Europe, Africa and the Middle East by consolidating its regional feeds into one global offering. In addition, last month, the Bloomberg UTV channel was launched in India and later this year BloombergHT will launch in Turkey.

Not to be left behind, CNN has announced the re-launch of  its website. The new CNN.com includes more in-depth reports from around the globe, more video and photos and new features that make the site easier to browse. Users will be able to customise their homepage with weather and local headlines, the latest stockmarket fluctuations and sports scores.

For luxury advertisers looking to broaden their reach internationally, all 3 of these developments are good news.  The increased penetration of these commercial content providers into Europe and beyond helps to simplify a complex market and provide efficient channels to reach an upmarket, international audience.

By: Karen Stephenson

Posted in International, Offline Media | No Comments »