DAG continues to go crossmedia

The Dutch free broadsheet DAG, a joint venture of the newspaper conglomerate PCM and the incumbent telecom operator KPN, are taking steps in crossmedia. Last week the free newspaper, published from Monday till Friday, started narrowcasting on hundreds of television sets in bars and cafes. The publication will also start a mobile television network via KPN’s DVB-H network.

So far DAG has been as a printed publication and internet editions on internet and on mobile telephone. The free printed edition has now a run of 415.000 copies and is distributed at railway and bus stations and in shops; people can now also have it delivered at home for 25 eurocents. The online edition has daily 770.000 visits and a penetration of 2,1 percent, which compares to the online site of the free broadsheet Spits and the TV broadcasts of Nieuwsniews.nl an RTL Z. The mobile internet site processes monthly 140.000 pageviews.

Presently there are hardly mobile telephones which can support this technology. In fact the technology is presently slowing down the introduction, but the Olympic Games should make the technology interesting enough for introducing a service.

Anticipating upon this network DVB-H service, Dag has started a narrowcasting network with On, a network which reached 750.000 young people. The narrow casting service will also be extended to the network of Media Landscape. Newspages are shown with video and text and the format is being tested for the DVB-H service.

DAG is a project of PCM and KPN, which have signed a co-operation for four years. PCM brings in its expertise in the field of editing, printing and distribution as well as advertisement acquisition. KPN brings in the internet, mobile and mobile tv technology. However it is now also bringing in its content service Planet Internet. Recently the editor-in-chief left as KPN made its intention know to integrate/scale down the editorial staff of Planet Internet with the Dag editorial staff. Articles in DAG will be published in print and on the Planet Internet site. So far Planet Internet has scaled down its original article output in the past two years.

Blog Posting Number: 908

Tags: newspaper, DVB-H, mobile services, narrowcasting