ON DECRYPT
It was a five-year-old, an eternity in the media world. " Liberation is on the edge of the abyss," said then its operational director at the time, Pierre Fraidenraich. Since then, the daily - which was losing money - has recovered thanks to the digital to display, in 2019, a newfound health: 18,000 digital subscribers have been recruited since July 2018 and the objective is to reach the 70,000 faithful of here 2021.
Clément Delpirou, co-manager of Libération , was the guest of Culture Médias with Philippe Vandel, Wednesday, on Europe 1, to explain the passage of the seers from red to orange for the newspaper. Even, surprisingly for a newspaper in 2019, green.
A dozen more journalists since 2018
If "Libé" is still far enough away from the figures of the other dailies that are Le Figaro (121,000 digital subscribers) and especially Le Monde (183,000), the former daily newspaper of Rue Beranger (the editorial office is now located in the Altice Campus, in the south-west of Paris) was able to operate its moult for three reasons, according to Clément Delpirou.
First, editorial investment has been at the heart of Libération's digital shift. "Although it may seem counterintuitive, the writing has grown for a year and a half," says the co-manager of the newspaper. Today, there are "a little more than 190 journalists" in the editorial staff of the newspaper, still classified on the left.
At Pol, you're cooking, Rajeux ...
This editorial investment was doubled by a technical investment, after a redesign of the paper and the site in spring 2015. The management set up interfaces, recruited developers and built a specific team to make the digital subscription more attractive. "Before, it was the great defect of the French press," says Clément Delpirou. On the menu, a simpler procedure to subscribe, with round rates: 8 euros for digital publishing and 25 euros for the full offer including digital and paper.
Finally, Libération wanted to enrich its offer "with specifically digital content, perfectly connected with the fundamentals of Liberation ": we find for example "Chez Pol", the daily political newsletter that has just celebrated its first birthday, "You mitonnes", a section on gastronomy, and a games application, "RaJeux". Recently, the newspaper launched "L", a feminist newsletter that develops a mobile magazine for October.
At L'Express , an assignment clause before the redesign
Also co-manager of L'Express , now owned by Alain Weill, boss of Altice France, Clément Delpirou indicates that "thirty journalists" have left the weekly since the opening of the clause of assignment, which is a a device allowing journalists to leave a media outlet with compensation when the owner changes. This assignment clause ends Friday evening.
And L'Express is preparing its redesign today, with "a different project of Liberation ", on the model of the liberal weekly Anglo-Saxon The Economist : "more in the analysis", the idea is "do not fight daily with the dailies to treat hot news ", but" take time "to analyze the news and deliver" each week about sixty value-added articles ".