Much of the Western world may be facing a decline in newspaper sales as readers move to online for free instead of buying a print copy, and whilst Austria is no exception the central European state is faring better than its regional neighbours Germany and the UK.  The widespread downturn has been mostly felt in the broadsheet, quality press, but yet again, it is an Austrian paper that is bucking the trend.

According to a report, by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US newspaper publishing market declined by a staggering 30 percent between 2007 and 2009, with the UK losing 21 percent, and Greece and Spain’s markets falling by 20 and 16 percent, respectively.  Declines of 10 percent were seen in Germany, 7 percent in Portugal, Sweden and Finland, and 4 percent in France.  But in Austria, readership and revenue have fallen by just 2 percent.

So why is Austria managing to weather this storm better than its Western Hemisphere peers?

“We have a different situation in Austria [to other Western countries],” explains Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, the editor-in-chief of Der Standard, a leading quality daily in Austria.  “Print media in Austria are profiting from the crisis, especially quality papers, because readers want information which they can trust.  So they want to read more quality press and we can see this in the rising figures for Der Standard and Die Presse [another Austrian quality daily].”

Austria enjoys a strong regional press with regional newspapers dominating up to 90 per cent of the regional markets, according to the Maastricht-based European Journalism Centre. Most of Austria’s nine provinces are dominated by just one regional publisher who controls one, two or even three newspapers.  The main newspapers of the national press are all published out of the capital, Vienna, with the populist daily tabloid Kronen Zeitung enjoying a whopping average daily readership of 41.3 per cent of all newspaper readers in the country.  Although Der Standard only has a lowly 6 per cent share of all newspaper readers, it is the second most widely-read broadsheet or quality newspaper in Austria, and its share has grown by 1 per cent, compared to Kronen Zeitung’s decline of 0.9 per cent.  Kurier, the most widely-read quality paper, and Der Standard’s traditional rival Die Presse also both saw increases in readership between 2007/08 and 2008/09, with the papers enjoying rises of 0.1 per cent (up from 8.7) and 0.2 per cent (up from 3.6) respectively, further proving Föderl-Schmid’s theory of Austrians turning to quality papers since the economic crisis.

Föderl-Schmid took over as editor-in-chief at Der Standard in 2007 after serving as a foreign correspondent, as well as the editor of the business desk.  Having studied communications and media, as well as political science and history, at the University of Salzburg and worked at the newspaper since 1990, the 39-year-old strongly dismisses suggestions that as the only female newspaper editor in Austria, her gender is of any significance.

“I am really, really surprised that other colleagues, also in the media, have discussed this factor, that I am a woman.  In Der Standard it has never played any role.  I could do anything; I was a reporter in Afghanistan several times, in Colombia and so on.  Nobody has ever said ‘Well you are a woman, I am not sure if you can do this or that.’  It was never a question.  Oscar Bronner [founder and publisher of Der Standard] was also surprised that this was such a focus…

“I think as long as it is something special to view a woman in such a position – well, we have a problem.”

But this may soon no longer be the case.  According to Föderl-Schmid’s observations, fewer men and more women are coming into print media, with most of Der Standard’s new trainees and interns being women.

Also changing the dynamic of the Austrian print media landscape is the introduction of the ‘Gratiszeitung’, or free-sheet, Heute, which is distributed for free across Vienna, as well as in the two largest Austrian provinces of Upper and Lower Austria.  Not only is this providing a new rival to the established paid-for newspapers in Austria, but also, with its introduction into the media statistics, it paints a more buoyant picture of the Austrian press to the outside world.  According to Heute’s own research, it now has a circulation of 712,000 readers, making it the second most widely-read newspaper in the three areas it distributes.

But how can the other newspapers turn the readers of this free-sheet into paying readers of the quality press? And equally pressing, how can newspapers ensure that their existing readers continue to pay, rather than turning exclusively to their free online versions?

“We have to show it is worth to pay for information because you get more,” said Föderl-Schmid.

The answer at Der Standard has been to make her print versions more valuable and to shun complete integration of her online and print production.

“We have different staff – this is the print section and the online colleagues are separate, but we have tried to bring the strengths together but not in this form where we have a common newsroom,” explains Föderl-Schmid.  “It works well and last year even though it was difficult [during the crisis] both branches were successful.”

Rather than producing topic-specific, one-off supplements, which Föderl-Schmid claims get disgarded and left unread, she introduced the novel approach of an integrated supplement; all stories relating to a chosen topic – such as Obama’s inauguration, proposed changes to the education system, the introduction of the Euro – are highlighted with icons as they appear in the newspaper, be it in the foreign, business, politics or arts sections of the paper.  These special editions of the paper, which are produced every eight weeks, have proven incredibly popular, with an edition focussing on the global food crisis earning the paper its second highest circulation for a single edition.

These special editions are not reflected on the newspaper’s website – Föderl-Schmid says her experience has taught her that they do not work as well online – further encouraging people to buy a print copy of the paper.

A significant portion of Heute’s readers are under 40, but of the paid-for newspapers, Der Standard has the youngest average reader at 42 years, compared to 47.6 for both Die Presse and Kronen Zeitung and 47.8 years old for Kurier.  Der Standard is particularly popular with students and young professionals.

“We have the youngest readers in Austria…which is for us very important.  We have a lot of readers who are at the end of their twenties, start of thirties.  Maybe they have started a new job after university, they have a flat, they maybe have a family.  But they do not have the same time anymore.  At university you can surf the internet to grab your news from here and there… We have a lot who subscribe to Der Standard because we also do this job of selection.”

Although compared even to most of Western Europe, Austria enjoys a good level of press freedom, Föderl-Schmid says that the country is not without its problems.  As a strong advocate in press freedom – she is a member of the executive board of the International Press Institute and was a key force in relaunching the once-defunct national press association [equivalent to the Press Complaints Commission in the UK] – Föderl-Schmid, answers with an emphatic “Yes!” when asked if there are any problems regarding press freedom in the country.

She has proven to be a harsh critic of certain sectors of Austrian society, particularly government departments who removed advertising, and thus key revenue, from her paper and others after they published damning reports. She has also criticised public broadcaster ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk) for allegedly bowing to political influences.

“In Austria we have a small bubble of journalists and of politicians and there is a sort of pressure: ‘OK if you won’t write what I want, I will take the advertisements.’  We have seen it several times…

“I think it is a contradiction for a journalist to have to declare that I am for this or that party to get this or that position in the ORF. That’s really a problem.”

Föderl-Schmid believes there is a lack of awareness among journalists of the issues facing press freedom in Austria, and although based in Vienna, the International Press Institute usually only appear in the media section of the paper [as is also common in The New York Times and the UK’s Guardian newspaper], rather than in the main political or international sections of the paper.  So, should press freedom issues appear closer to the front of the paper?

“Sure!” agrees Föderl-Schmid. “I think we try to integrate it when we write about press freedom issues.  We write relatively a lot about this issue.  But on the other hand, we are the only daily in Austria with intensive reporting on [the] media.  I think it’s important to write about it constantly about what is going on.”

Alexandra Föderl-Schmid is speaking at the IPI World Congress in September on the “Reporting on Extremist Politicians – How New and Traditional Media Cover the Politics of the Extreme” panel, alongside Jim Clancy, anchor on CNN International, Miroslav Lajčák, former high representative and EU special representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and former minister of foreign affairs of the Slovak Republic, Sergej Danilov, investigative reporter for Rádio Expres in Slovakia and Gábor Miklósi, investigative reporter for Index.hu in Hungary.  To register, click here.