To not only reverse the worrying trends, but become a growth business again, Valerio said drastic measures had to be taken.

“We went through deep market analysis to decide how to refocus our strategy,” he said. “We found out that, on the positive side, Gazzetta dello Sport had tremendous brand awareness and tremendous engagement with our readers, especially young readers,” but unfortunately, the paper also had an old image and a product concept that needed innovation.

The newspaper had a basic, three-step strategy: 1. Brand: reposition with focus on young market 2. Product: innovation and integration 3. Model: multimedia and multichannel

The newspaper, which is pink, switched to a full colour, compact Berliner style, with 64 pages at the most. The group also invested in local editions where the paper had less of a presence, and also worked on weekly magazines. Outside of print, the Web site was completely revamped, and the group sponsored more events to reach out to readers, such as bike races, road races and a volleyball and concert series. They also launched a large advertising campaign surrounding the newspaper's make-over.

The results included stabilising circulation between 2006 and 2007, shich had been sharply decreasing, and over the past year is up to just over three percent. For national commercial advertising revenues were up 10 percent in 2006, and three percent in 2007. Additionally, the newspaper tripled its audience from 2006 to 2007, which is now about 6.2 million unique visitors., he said.

Eenadu

When the Indian newspaper Eenadu launched in 1974, the country had 875 dailies. Now, that number is at 2,130, I. Venkat, board director of Eenadu, told the congress audience.

The newspapers that did exist focused on larger areas, and Eenadu's founders knew there was a market for local media, but had to learn more about the paper's potential readers. To do this, the newspaper's founders went to each town and village in the area, to survey the number of people who spoke and understood the language. When the paper launched, circulation initiatives included a door-to-door campaign, free distribution of the newspaper for 10 days, and getting feedback from readers.

Over time, the newspaper went from selling ad space to concept selling, Venkat said.

“How do you get a business to advertise that has never advertised? We created opportunity for unconventional advertisers: category ads, personal ads, event-specific ads,” he said. Advertisers can choose ad templates, and fill in their information to make the advertising process easier, he added.

In 1987, the newspaper launched a Sunday magazine, and witnessed sales go up by about 100,000 copies each Sunday. In 1992, Eenadu launched a full-colour page for women, and saw circulation increase more than 35 percent, he said.

Bonnier Group

Due to more pressure for time, how people consume and discuss media has changed, and even though they have less time, they have more choices, Sara Ohrvall, president of Research and Development at Bonnier Group in Sweden, told the audience.

“The world is changing quickly, and the media explosion is happening,” she said. Because people take shorter breaks, they have less time for media, which means they have “snack media.” Media exposure + pressure for time = snack media, she said.

Other than a growing number of media choices and less time, consumers are also more likely to use personal media technology, such as mobile phones, because they want to snack on media, she said. This leads to increased social networking and less loyalty to media brands. However, with all the bite-sized information surrounded by more choices, newspapers will increasingly been seen as more trustworthy, she said, pointing to the fact that people trust newspaper advertisements more than any other media.