The figures
‘I won’t beat about the bush: 2012 was a difficult year.
The operating result dropped by 17%. Despite this we can still regard the
year as “reasonably OK” if one takes into account the difficult market
conditions. With a slight decrease of 0.3% our reader market remained
fairly stable. The main impact was in the advertising market. Although
advertising revenues grew by 5% for digital, revenue for print declined
by 8%. The TV magazines continue to be difficult: sales of Dag Allemaal
and TV Familie dropped by 6% and 10% respectively. Unfortunately, we
have had to stop DMuze, the second Saturday magazine of De Morgen
due to a lack of advertising revenue, but fortunately, we have not lost
any readers as a result of this.’
Looking back
‘We are evolving from a publisher into a multimedia
organisation. Our digital publishing activities are therefore no longer
combined in de Persgroep Digital and we have organised all publishing
activities by country because, after all, Belgium and the Netherlands
each have their own characteristics and challenges. We are no longer
focussing on the medium but on the brand in all of its manifestations
– whether it be print, digital or mobile. We are endeavouring to ready
ourselves for an uncertain situation in the TV magazine market by offering
more content-related added value. Finally, we once again organised
the excellent Advertiser’s Summit event during which we bring together
our advertisers in order to gain inspiration, contacts and ideas.’
Looking ahead
‘The most important issue is how we address the
declining advertising market. For 2013 we expect a stagnation but with
growing turnover in digital. We also want to further strengthen our
multimedia publishing and give our subscribers more for the same
money - more information, richer content, opportunities and tickets.
In addition, we are aiming to maintain control of costs and to operate
in the most efficient way. However, we will not be cutting back on our
journalists; on the contrary. We will be investing in their talents and
competencies with lectures, courses and debates from Campus De Persgroep
because we believe in the power of good journalism.’
Rudy Bertels
General Manager de Persgroep Publishing




























































