(Michael P. Smith)

There are many reasons that can explain the current success the attractive and sophisticated Brazilian newspapers are currently enjoying. Let's count them:

1. The growing economy (while not China) sure is creating a lot of advertisers.


2. With the economic boom, comes higher education, better jobs and a bigger middle class eager to be part of the mainstream reading public.


3. Despite this boom, Internet usage remains low - about 15 percent penetration.


4. Their own national research shows that Brazilians really value the daily newspaper. The most quoted line from the research: Brazilians believe the newspaper is their anchor to the world.

All of this may be true, but I also want to give credit to the smart newspaper editors and publishers in Brazil and some of the very smart things they did 10 to 15 years ago when the picture was not bright. That in a moment, but a bit of background first.

I was in Brazil for the seventh meeting of the national newspaper association (Associação Nacional de Jornais). It was a vibrant conference with 773 attendees. By comparison, that would rival a joint meeting of the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It would rival attendance at the World Association of Newspapers just four years ago.

Circulation is up in Brazil year over year. According to the Brazilian Audit Bureau of Circulation(IVC), average daily circulation last year increased 11.8 percent over 2006, which was already up 6.5 percent in comparison to the previous year. Based on these IVC figures, the Brazilian association of newspapers (ANJ) estimated an average daily circulation of more than 8 million copies in 2007.

Advertising sales in 2007 also brought good news for the Brazilian newspaper industry. After the newspapers' share of the country's advertising pie had shrunk for years, 2007 witnessed a major upturn of 15.22 percent over 2006, according to the Inter-Media Project, the main reference for Brazil's advertising market. Newspapers were thus earning 16.38 percent of the country's advertising revenue.

Outgoing ANJ President Nelson Sirotsky said Brazil currently has 3,000 newspapers, including 500 dailies. The ANJ represents 137 companies, which together account for 90 percent of daily circulation.

"In 2020, we'll be approximately 210 million Brazilians. That means 23 million more people. Half of the population will be older than 32. The average per capita income will be around US$13,000, much higher than the current US$8,400," he said. Jorge said those combined factors would help grow readership.

Not everyone agreed - mostly the Americans. Some of my colleagues warned of storm clouds on the horizon. Rosental Calmon Alves, a former newspaper editor in Rio de Janeiro who holds a Knight Chair at the University of Texas, said the changes that will occur in the next decade will be more profound than anything that happened during Brazil's 200-year press history. He told the leading newspaper Folha de Sao Paolo: "Whenever there's been a business risk, newspapers changed while continuing to be newspapers. Now they will have to transform into something else, but they'll have to take the values of newspapers in this new direction."

Newspapers in Brazil have seen five straight years of circulation and revenue growth. But that hasn't always been the case. A decade ago, some of the biggest titles were suffering. Rather than hunker down, editors and owners decided to innovate. Some of the best practices taught in our classes at the Media Management Center have come from the Brazilian case studies.

One example is O Globo. It was a global best practice for gathering information from readers and using that information to make the newspaper more engaging and useful for readers. I wrote about that in a workbook called Managing for Excellence. (The O Globo case begins on page 21.) It was that spirit of experimentation and innovation that led the parent InfoGlobo to create the colorful, popular newspaper called Extra.

For several years, the Grupo RBS newspaper Zero Hora has been a global best practice for attracting younger readers. Editor Marcelo Rech's practice of spreading youth news throughout the newspaper (rather than putting it in a kid's page ghetto) was labeled Total Youth-think when featured in a strategy report by the World Association of Newspapers. I have used Zero Hora as an exemplar in using reader panels to help guide coverage and new products in the newspaper.

Five years ago, Folha de Sao Paolo decided it needed to preserve classifieds in print and focused on size. Big is best, they concluded. They made a few cheap commercials, featuring a rat, that became a national rage and grew classifieds. Big Folha resulted. The commercials are now something of a Youtube phenomenon.








Brazilian editors I talked with rave about the success of the Lance!, a large sports daily with regional editions in Sao Paolo and Rio. It is only 3 years old but has transformed itself into a new media company. It offers 15 hours of sports programming on its Web site each week, in addition to creating a colorful and vibrant print product for the sports-crazy nation. Chief editor Luiz Fernando Gomes emphasized the importance of training.

I offer these examples to show that many of these success stories were born in very difficult times. They are just not the product of a good economy. The seeds to this success were planted in tough times.

My role at the conference was to talk about success stories in the United States. That was easy because many smart people are doing good things here, too.


By Michael P. Smith (m-smith3@northwestern.edu)
Michael P. Smith is executive director of the Media Management Center.

Marcelo, Mike Smith responding here. Thank you for providing the link to your blog. From your perspective do you agree with my assessment of the leadership of Brazilian newspapers?

Posted by  Anonymous at August 29, 2008 5:22 PM

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