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Practice what they preach?Convergence at regional newspapers, between ambition and
reality
Marco van Kerkhoven & Piet Bakker
HU University of Applied Sciences UtrechtSchool of Journalism
Regional daily in decline…2000 2013
Circulation 2,4 million 1,6 million
Titles 25 18
Per 100 households 35 23
• 3-5 % sales decrease every year• no region left with competing papers• 4 no-paper cities• 30 % staff decrease
In past ten+ years:
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ambition(interviews 2011)
vs
practice (content analyses 2012)
Convergence to the rescue?
‘we need to be more present online’
‘cross media is the future’
‘with video news we expect more visitors’
management and workfloor:
eight dailies (4 publishers)
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• monitoring:
• Digital newspaper and website • Mobile sites and applications • Social media (Facebook and Twitter)
• 2 * 2 weeks - six days - 24/7
coding
A/V – UGC
Cross content
Social media
innovators
Online video news Z2 Online video news Z2
followers
Stopped TwitterMainly service page
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Conclusions/discussion
• Vision or strategy poor
• Convergence practices ad hoc and
infrequent
• Overall: convergence practice generally
not in line with ambitions
