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Abstract
The circulation of the French daily newspapers has been decreasing for several decades, which has caused much debate about a “press crisis”, both in academic and professional circles. This paper examines the crisis of the French regional daily press. First, it introduces some general elements about the press crisis in France and then identifies some of the possible reasons for this crisis. While some factors are economic and common to the daily press as a whole, others are sociological and more specific to the regional press. In particular, the question of the changes in the relations between regional dailies and territorial identities is studied. During the “second modernity”, from the 1960s to the present, phenomena such as individualisation and urbanisation contributed to such changes. Finally, the newspapers’ reactions to the crisis are addressed. Changes in the treatment of local news are especially crucial to the survival of the regional dailies, but present obstacles and difficulties.
Notes
1. Until the 1960s, Le Parisien used to be a national newspaper. In the 1960s, it started publishing local editions containing local news of the Paris region. During the following decades, its catchment area was gradually restricted to this region. This “regionalisation” was motivated by the success of the regional press compared to that of the national press at the time, as well as the important proportion of this newspaper's readers who lived in the Paris region and the lack of a regional newspaper in this region.
2. For the first time, the circulations of the national and regional dailies were equal in 1939. After the Second World War, the regional dailies’ circulation exceeded the national dailies’, with 9.1 million copies per day in 1946 for the regional dailies and 5.9 million for the national dailies. In 2002, the gap between these two types of press was even more important, with a circulation of 2.2 million for the national press and 6.7 million for the regional press (Direction du développement des médias, 2005, p. 116).
3. The fall of circulation has not been as bad for every regional daily. However, almost all of them have lost readers since the 1980s, and even more since the 1990s. The situation of the newspapers that are studied in this paper is contrasted: while Ouest-France has lost 1.3 per cent of its circulation since 1990, Le Parisien has lost 4.4 per cent, and Le Progrès has lost 25 per cent (Balle, Citation2003, p. 91). However, all of the interviewees expressed concern about the press crisis and the possible ways to overcome it.
4. All quotes extracted from references in French have been translated by the author.
5. A study, published in 2003 and based on the audience figures of the regional daily press from 1957 to 2001, concluded that there was a “generational effect” on the regional dailies’ audience: the more recent a generation is, the less its members are likely to read a regional newspaper regularly (BIPE, Citation2003).
6. Jean-Marie Charon quotes the Institut de recherches et d’études publicitaires (IREP).
7. While 48.5 per cent of French people over 60 years old and 37.4 per cent of people between 35 and 59 read a regional daily in 2005, only 26.8 per cent of people between 15 and 34 did so (TNS Sofres 2006).
8. Although not central to this paper, sociological causes of the national press crisis could also be stressed. For instance, it could be hypothesised that the changes in the relations to political institutions have played a part in a decrease of interest in politics in general—a topic that is abundantly covered by the national dailies.
9. Interview with the author, Rennes, April 2006. Translation by the author.
10. In November 2007, among 65 regional daily newspapers, only 11 had no website listed by the French association of regional daily newspapers (SPQR, Syndicat de la presse quotidienne régionale, www.pqr.org).