The summary concludes that customers are willing to pay for digital content, the combination of print and digital has found good synergies, and 1/5 of subscriptions are now combination subscriptions, showing profitable digital content business is possible without hurting print or free online access.

1. Helsingin Sanomat
What a Free Web Site and Paid-For Digital Edition Has Yielded
Helsingin Sanomat
: What a Free Web Site and Paid-For Digital Edition Has
Yielded
1

2. Helsingin Sanomat
• The largest subscription based newspaper in the Nordic region (Circulation
weekdays: 412 000, Sunday 468 000). 965 000 readers. Coverage in Finland 22%
and in Greater Helsinki Area over 57%.
• NYT- weekly supplement. Weekly guide for entertainment and free time activities.
1,0 million readers. Kuukausiliite – monthly supplement, magazine format, a
pioneer in photojournalism and an initiator of debate. 1,4 million readers.
• Online products: HS.fi (1,3 million unique weekly visitors)
• 99% of the circulation is based on subscriptions and
only 1% sold single copies
• Helsingin Sanomat is delivered home before 6:00 am every
morning during the weekdays almost every region of the country.
2 2/2/10

3. Description of the Printed and Digital Package: Combined Subscription
(launched in 2006)
3 2/2/10

4. Business Logic and Pricing*
7 days a Weekend Non-
week Sunday
paper subscribers:
subscribers: paper
subscribers: subscribers:
15eur/month
3 eur/month + 4,5 eur/month + printed
printed paper 6 eur/month +
+ printed paper price
price printed paper
paper price price
(295 eur/ (180 eur/year)
year)
7-day subscription Combined subscription Margin improvement/
260 Digital 265 260 subscription
229 paper +
Capital area
archive 12 x 3 e/month
(euro)
= 36 e/ subscription
Direct Price Direct
Price costs costs

5. HS Digilehti – More Content for Combination (print + digi) Subscribers
Full access only for Combo
Subscribers:
• free access to all HS digital
archives
HS Digilehti
Part of Combination • weekly / annual packages of
Subscription, subject to charge Daily’s news / theme sections(eg.
for non- print subscribers (15 Sports)
eur/month)
• free access to all digital
www.hs.fi/digilehti supplements
5 2/2/10

6. HS.fi – Web Site (Free and Open to Everybody)
• HS.fi site including wide variety of content, services, etc.
1,3 million
weekly visitors
6 2/2/10

7. Weekly visitors of HS.fi web site 2006 - 2009
• At the same time Helsingin Sanomat (free ) website has managed to increase its weekly visitors from
500 000 to over 1,3M visitors (top 3 most popular sites in Finland)
• iPhone application (free) is the most popular IPhone news application in Finland
7 2/2/10

8. Conclusions
• Customers are willing to pay for digital content
• It is possible to find good synergies between
traditional printed and digital channels
• So far 1/5th of all HS subscriptions are Combination
subscriptions and the amount is increasing as most of
the new subscription sales include digital paper access
• Totally new approach has shown that it is possible to make
profitable business with paid digital content without affecting
negatively printed newspaper or free web site
• One of the future product development focus areas is
paid digital services
8 2/2/10

9. Kiitos!
9