One of Scandinavia's newspaper giants, Norwegian
Verdens Gang (VG), has set out to protect its paper edition from its own online edition.
Circulation figures released yesterday show that the paper was 15,000 copies down last year compared to 2003. That's a 3.9-percent decline. Surely, the success of the online edition
VG Nett contributes to the setback. According to business paper
Dagens Næringsliv,
VG editor-in-chief
Bernt Olufsen has drawn up these new rules of publication:
- Feature stories will not be published in the online edition.
- Consumer-interest stories will not be published online before after lunch.
- The front pages of the paper and online editions will have different expressions.
- Columnists will write exclusively for the paper edition.
There is little tradition for charging for premium content in Norway, and the tech-savvy population has come to expect free, high-quality content online. Further strategies for paid content or online charging were not disclosed by Olufsen.
