Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Schibsted
Schibsted
Schibsted
SCHIBSTED
Group 1:
Abhishek Menon Anisha Jain
Abhishek Rungta Ann Mary Sebastian
Akshay Singh Anoop Dev Singh
Amit Mishra Slathia
CASE BACKGROUND
Family owned newspaper company in Oslo, Norway for over 150 years
By 2006, it was a media group with 8,500 employees in 20 countries
Operations in newspapers, books and magazines publishing,
television and video production
Known for innovations in the segment, the group by 2007 owned
leading online newspapers in Norway and Sweden and controlled
Scandinavian web classifieds, search and other online services
Free print newspaper, 20 minutes, one of the top 10 newspapers in
Europe
In 2006, acquired Trader Classified Media, solidifying classified
advertising business in Europe and Latin America
Pressing Issues:
Google launching online Norwegian news aggregator
Long term organizational challenge; changing Consumer Preferences, Threat of
Startups
CASE BACKGROUND
Background of Newspaper Industry:
Origin Acta Diurna, first published in 59 B.C.
In 1440, Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press - Mass production of News
Latter part of 17th Century witnessed stronger motives of Censorship
19th Century – Tremendous growth in Newspaper business with the advent of Telegraph
20th Century – Penny Papers, Consolidation of Industry, Introduction of Radio & TV
News
Industry Economics:
In 2004 – Global Newspaper Market revenue $150 billion (20:80 ::
Circulation:Advertising)
Advertising – 3 classifications; Classified, Retail and National Advertising (40:50:10)
Costs – Raw material/Printing Costs (40% of revenues); Ad sales staff, editorial staff,
distribution (10-15% of revenue)
High operating margins
Goodwill – Significant factor in Valuation
Ad rates increase by 253% and newspaper prices by 161% between 1970-90
Rising newsprint costs
CASE BACKGROUND
Internet and Newspaper Industry:
By 2005 Washington Post and New York Times – Double digit growth in online
revenues
Still overall only 6-8% of the total revenue of major public newspapers was
realised online
However Circulations declined, classified advertising migrated to Online Sites
SCHIBSTED:
1860 – After Posten, daily newspaper
1966 – After Posten acquired Verdens Gang (VG) The Schibsted Group
(1970)
1986 – Schibsted acquired Trosmo (Local Newspaper) & a Film Labratory
1989 – Joint Stock Company Public Listed Company in 1992
1991 – Govt. Licence to operate Norway's first terrestrial commercial TV
channel TV2 and forayed as a comprehensive media company
1996 – Nagell Erichsen established ‘Tinius Trust’
CASE BACKGROUND
Transformation of SCHIBSTED:
1995 – Decision for transforming from Print to Electronic Media and from
Norwegian company to Scandinavian company
Reorganisation to Print Media, TV/Film and Multimedia
1997 – Partner with internet portal Scandinavian Online (SOL) with Telenor
1999 – Introduced ‘first free’ daily newspaper, 20 Minutes
2001 – Burst of dot.com bubble. Annual loss more than 350 million NOK.
Share prices eroded by 50%
Great pressure to cut back on new media investments
Sale of Schibsted’s shares in SOL for a gain on 550 million NOK
Takes on Classified Advertisements
Take 1: PDF copies of newspaper ads which were not searchable. To but
online ad space, one needed to buy print paper ad space
Take 2: Rebrand classified section as FINN to be perceived as sub-brands of
trusted print newspaper
CASE BACKGROUND