Before looking at the state of economical situation of the traditional press, their financing methods should be quickly examined. In 2009 the biggest part of their financing is advertising, a little more than 52% of the total. Then it is the sale of the newspapers per subscription, which is 32% of the total. The smallest part is the individual sale of the newspapers, which represents 16% of the gross revenue. This shows once again the significance of the advertising for the newspapers in Switzerland.
As just seen in a previous section, the circulation of daily newspapers is decreasing drastically. The average circulation of the daily newspapers went from 12‟000 to 10‟600 titles a day from 1986 to 2008. And the overall number is even worse, a drop of 42% over the same period of time. Few of the major newspapers in Switzerland (excluding the free ones) have grown their circulation significantly in the last twenty years. In fact the three biggest ones have decreased considerably(24).
That is the market today in terms of circulation. It is important to study the financial aspect of the market as well. The latest numbers are from 2009. The total revenue for the Swiss media in 2009 is 12.9 billion francs:
2009 revenue of the media in Switzerland
(25)
As represented in this graphic 10.1 billion Swiss franks come from the users of the media and 2.8 billion from the advertising. Both have decreased in comparison from last year, -0.2% and -15.1% respectively. If these global percentages are compared, the press has lost more over the last year. 1.2% less in content revenues and -20.4% in advertising revenues. This number is very significant because advertising is such a big part of the newspapers revenue. In fact it is more than 50% of the total and it contrasts with the sum of the revenues of all media, where advertising is only a little more than 20% of the total.
Globally for the newspapers their revenue has fallen to 3.6 billion francs in 2009, which is a loss of 12.3% in comparison to last year. In light of these figures, the conclusion is that even though newspapers remain today the biggest media in Switzerland, their economical state is slowly decreasing. The general tendency of the media market is decreasing as well but not as much as the newspapers are.
24http://www.schweizermedien.ch/fileadmin/schweizerpresse/brancheninfos/nutzermarkt/15_gr.Zeitungen_90-09.pdf
25http://www.schweizermedien.ch/fileadmin/schweizerpresse/brancheninfos/medienbudget/2009_Praesentation_Medienbudget.pdf
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