Finance Weekend a Success

How can you increase your subscription price and not lose subscribers? For Slovenia's business daily Finance, the key was starting up a new Weekend supplement, focusing on leisure and lifestyle.

"We'd been thinking about Finance Weekend for quite a long time, since a weekend section is a common supplement at other Bonnier business newspapers," says Marjan Bauer, editor-in-chief for the new supplement, which was launched last fall. "It took us about two months to create the first issue."

Finance Weekend comes out every Friday, and with the launch came a 33 percent subscription price increase - which has had virtually no impact on the renewal rates, with less than 5 percent saying they aren't renewing because of the higher price, Bauer says.

"So far, considering the statistics, it seems that our readers really like Finance Weekend a lot," says Bauer. "They say that they needed something new and fresh to read during the weekends. And a specialty of the Finance Weekend supplement is that the first part consists of serious content - politics, economy, social issues - while the rest is lifestyle."

Bauer says that supplements are key for modern newspapers. "If a daily has lots of supplements, it more easily can reach a range of different readers - and it has more options for ads," he says. "Targeting readers on a year or half-year basis, it is important to have a strong and fresh weekend supplement to attract new subscribers. Along with other Finance supplements, Weekend is a new reason for readers to get the paper and its content was no doubt strong enough to support a raise in subscription price."