What future for the media? Should we reinvent ourselves, diversify? Pascal Ruffenach is the chairman of the board of directors of the Bayard group, which includes The cross – which is celebrating its 150th anniversary – Pilgrim, Our time and the youth center, with Astrapi, Okapi, I like to read. He responds to Franceinfo on Wednesday November 22.
franceinfo: Pascal Ruffenach, when we see that the circulation of paper newspapers is down by around 10% last year. Is it absolutely necessary to diversify and digitize to move forward?
Pascal Ruffenach: First, we must continue to fight for paper newspapers, because they have virtues that nothing can replace. We now know, especially for the youngest, attention, attachment, commitment… All of that is not at all the same thing in the digital world. That doesn’t mean that digital isn’t a good thing, but we shouldn’t abandon paper. And the paper becomes more and more beautiful.
“The quality of magazines or newspapers is becoming more and more beautiful. That is already a first battle to be fought, there is no reason to give up.”
Pascal Ruffenachat franceinfo
The book is holding up quite well in bookstores. We are in a supply market, so there is no reason why the paper, at least for certain segments of the population, should not hold up.
But the drop in distribution is still 10% per year.
Today we find the distributions, roughly, before Covid, which were rather stable for quite a long time, at least for young people, even slightly growing. Today, families have increasing cultural needs for their children, to make current events understood, and they turn to resources, notably those of Bayard or the Milan group, which is part of the group Bayard. But diversifying, obviously, is important. Because what is expensive in our professions is the creation and production of content. Not only that, but it’s expensive.
The most important thing is the quality of the content.
Yes, it’s the content. And how can we develop this content, these editorial intuitions, on several media? This is what Bayard wanted to respond to by becoming a publisher, around fifty years ago now, by being number two and three in publishing with Milan Jeunesse, particularly on children’s comics. We are truly the leader in this segment. Unlike magazines, each book is a different act of purchase, a different way of writing, but there is editorial intuition, the connection between people. A business is an economic adventure, but above all it is a human adventure.
“When people talk to each other, exchange ideas, it gives ideas for books and then it gives, why not, ideas for columns for magazines.”
Pascal Ruffenachfranceinfo
For example, a long report that lasted nine months The crossin a police station in Roubaix, gave a graphic novel, which will be released next school year.
But digitization, developing on the internet, having richer content also means increasing your income. And you have ambitions?
Yes, we have ambitions on the internet. We really have a culture of relationships, of subscription, of loyalty, of the long term. And it’s true that, when we think of digital, we immediately think of the audience, of the monetization of this audience with advertising, of the “click”.
“The Internet, for us, is a culture a little bit different from the one we know, which is one of attachment.”
Pascal Ruffenachat franceinfo
But you still have to make money.
Yes, and the audience is necessary, because it is from there that we engage people, that we bring them to us. So the whole point for us is to understand the content which can appeal more widely and which, afterwards, lead back to more lasting links and in particular links which have an economic basis.
“The whole difficulty is that more and more people are getting information, wanting to have access to information, but there are only 30% of people who pay for information in France.”
Pascal Ruffenachat franceinfo
So we absolutely have to break through this wall, show people that it has value, that there are teams of journalists working. There are teams linked to technology who develop this and who provide access to this content. It has a cost and we must therefore allow them to be paid.
You also internationalized by buying a company in the United States. So, is it to make money?
Yes, even when you’re a Bayard, you have to earn money. Today, we must not separate the human adventure from the economic adventure, nor from the ecological adventure for that matter. That is to say that there is no economy that must be made which is separated from other purposes.
And what do you do at Bayard?
To return to the United States, we are going there because Bayard’s DNA, for exactly the same reasons of creation in France, can be found internationally. Either to sell rights to what we have created, or, even more interestingly, to establish ourselves in countries for a long time. This is the case in Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, and Africa. In Africa, for 25 years, we have tried several models to see how we can develop and provide access to content produced by Africans.
“That’s also the interest of international, is that you receive content from the countries in which you are.”
Pascal Ruffenachat franceinfo
You thus expand your circle of content, creators, illustrators, photographers, etc. So international, for us, was a natural path. The Americans do not deprive themselves of it. There is no reason for the French to deprive themselves of it.
Bayard is a UFO in the press world since the group is owned by the congregation of the Augustinians of the Assumption. When other press groups are owned by billionaires, what does that change?
It gives a certain taste of independence, first of all. This gives you the obligation to rely on your own resources to develop, because it is a shareholder to whom we do not pay dividends and who does not give us money to develop particularly.
Do you play in the same league?
Yes, it seems to me. We have a size comparable to that of all other press groups. Bayard is around 360 million euros this year, that is to say roughly the size of the group Les Echos, Le Monde, perhaps Le Figaro or the regional press groups.
So this concentration of the media today in the hands of several billionaires doesn’t worry you?
We have a real barrier, which is digital and which is very expensive. We need resources, so there is no formal opposition to concentration. It simply has to be done for the right reasons.