Mrs. Stanek, the head of PolskaPresse reiterated that she has no doubt that the new nationwide newspaper (‘Monitor’?), based on existing local dailies, would be launch in fall this year. Mrs. Stanek added that the target is to create a ‘number one’ newspaper in Poland, with circulation reaching 0.8-1.0m copies and the budget allocated for the new title launch is comparable to the previous launches (Axel Springer’s ‘Dziennik’). Its profile would be to focus on what is happening beyond Warsaw, in an effort to differentiate itself from ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ ‘Dziennik’, and ‘Rzeczpospolita’.
Our view:
It looks like the weaker the case for launching a national newspaper (local presence in only half of Poland, lack of any local presence in Warsaw), the stronger the words of Polskapresse top brass. If the new title is launched, it could only make worse the competitive landscape, characterised by declining copy sales of national papers and copy prices still depressed by ‘Dziennik’ entry. We believe that the outlook for a tough end of the year for newspaper publishers could dampen Agora stock price over the medium term. We anticipate a negative market reaction to the news.