The future of print looks bleak

Published on: May 5, 2020 / Update from: August 22, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

2020 - Infographic: The future of print looks bleak

According to IVW, the circulation of national daily newspapers sold amounted to 2.2 million copies in the first quarter of 2020 - 7.5 percent less than in the same period last year. For comparison: in 2010 there were still around five million copies. BILD (including BZ) has been hit hard by the print crisis and has recently lost around eight percent of its circulation year-on-year. And this is far from the end of the road, as a forecast based on quarterly circulation since 1998 shows. Accordingly, the tabloid's sold circulation will fall to around 890,000 copies by the first quarter of 2025. In this scenario, the total circulation of national daily newspapers would fall to around 1.6 million.

2018 – Sold circulation shrinks to 2.5 million – Bild loses 47 percent

National daily newspapers in Germany are currently selling around 2.5 million copies per issue (-7.6% compared to Q3 2017). This emerges from current data from the information community for determining the distribution of advertising media (IVW) for the third quarter of 2018. At the beginning of the decade there were almost 1.8 million more. The circulation of Bild, for example, has shrunk by 47 percent compared to the first quarter of 2010 - in fact, the decline is likely to be even higher because the circulation reported to the IVW also includes BZ (since Q2 2013) and Fußballbild (from Q1 2017).