Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/441179
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 JANUARY 2015 News PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM MSV LIFE WHAT'S YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION? SAVINGS CAN TAKE MANY FORMS BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IS TO START SAVING SOMETHING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON OUR RANGE OF SAVINGS AND RETIREMENT PLANS PLEASE CONTACT US ON FREEPHONE 8007 2220 OR SEND US AN EMAIL ON RETIREMENT@MSVLIFE.COM HOW ABOUT SAVING FOR YOUR RETIREMENT? MSV Life p.l.c. is authorised by the Malta Financial Services Authority to carry on long term business under the Insurance Business Act, 1998. COM 301214 MaltaToday in 2015 – taking digital trust to new markets In an environment where newspapers face falling sales, MaltaToday welcomes 2015 after a year in which it bridged the gulf between 'digital pence' and 'print pounds' MAKE no mistake about it: the busi- ness of news is in trouble and few, if any, newspaper owners this year will be pleased looking at their balance sheet and sales figures. Not so Mediatoday – the publishers of MaltaToday, Illum, and Gourmet Today – for whom 2014 has confirmed once again the success of its business model: free news daily for digital read- ers on maltatoday.com.mt and a high volume of off-diary stories and inves- tigative journalism on its Sunday flag- ship, MaltaToday. "Despite the difference in reader profiles, or even between volumes of online readers and paying newspa- per buyers, 2014 was the year where we achieved a sustainable balance between the 'digital pennies' and the 'print pounds'," Mediatoday manag- ing editor Saviour Balzan says. "Newspapers can only thrive if they take risks: newspapers burdened with legacy models such as daily print edi- tions are losing out on daily sales, and they have to raise prices and charge higher advertising rates to sustain a very costly model. Going digital is not cheap, because you then have to face up to a market of readers that is frag- mented and craves personalization. For Mediatoday, the challenge in 2015 is how to respond to this fragmenta- tion of readers." There is no secret to MaltaToday's success. "If you look at how we broke the news over the last 15 years, it has always been the result of intense news reporting irrespective of the powers that be," managing director Roger De- giorgio says. "It is a difficult business environ- ment when your product – the news – has dire effects on who calls the shots in the country. We set the news agenda and that puts us on a collision course with the government, the police, even the Church, as MaltaToday's role in the divorce referendum has proved." Stories like the Enemalta oil scandal, broken exclusively by MaltaToday in January 2013, brought about seven ar- raignments on alleged corruption, and hundreds of hours of hearings in the Public Accounts Committee. The first newspaper to publish the secret OLAF report into the Dalligate investigation, MaltaToday uncovered what was tan- tamount to an illegal EU investigation whose allegations of bribery and cor- ruption were not even followed to the letter by the Maltese police. "It's a different ball game running a successful newspaper without in- stitutional support," say Balzan and Degiorgio, owners of Mediatoday. "No parties, unions, banks, or indus- try leaders finance our operations. We never stop questioning how to improve the news business model: we survive by constantly questioning ourselves." MaltaToday's stories have been responsible for countless inquiries: magisterial inquiries into the scale of direct orders issued by the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools in the then education minister's electoral dis- trict; over €2 million in direct orders at Mater Dei Hospital confirmed by the Auditor General; more than one inquiry into the death of police sus- pect Nicholas Azzopardi; and more recently the €4.2 million Café Premier 'bailout', still the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Auditor General. "Pride drives MaltaToday jour- nalists, that sense of ownership for a newspaper that serves readers of all political hues, who look to us for a credible source of unadulter- ated news," maltatoday.com.mt editor Matthew Vella says. "We love champi- oning readers' interests – irrespective of who they are. "Also key is the multimedia experi- ence, how to present the news. Readers today know us for our live-blogging of events as they break, our solid surveys, our political stories, the best comment and critics, and the way we integrate social media into our news. We don't just report the news, we help readers understand it – and our competitors follow our best practices," Vella says. In 2014, MaltaToday revamped its website in response to readers' de- mands for a better user experience and advertisers' needs for more ad- vertising opportunities, consolidating not just its Top-10 Alexa standing but welcoming new advertising partners and sponsors. 2015 is set to be an exciting year to present a new way to bring readers more news, say Vella and digital con- tent manager Daniela Vella. "Our strategy has been: don't do notice-board news. Keep the fresh content coming. Off-diary news is crucial to MaltaToday readers," Mat- thew Vella says. "The future of marketing is the same as that of digital," Daniela Vella adds. "A key trend we predict is how news- papers like ours can improve their distribution in different formats to provide even more value for money to advertisers. "Other newspapers will spend the year concerned about falling print sales. We will be concentrating on bringing the news, and more, to read- ers in the format they like. And the question we will be asking is this: if MaltaToday is trusted to bring the news, can it leverage this trust into different markets?" A conscious decision has been made to keep MaltaToday a trusted brand that does not have to resort to sensa- tionalism or online click-bait to reel in the readers. "Dilute the news with irrelevant click-bait to juke the online stats, and it will be advertisers who suffer," Dan- iela Vella says. "Advertisers can either depend on volumes or else combine it with quality. Our readers are 'the market' to advertisers: readers who seek out quality news, intelligent comment, investigative journalism, and coura- geous editorial lines, also tend to be higher spenders, engaged consumers, and more prone to try new services or travel more. Advertisers need readers who actually spend money after they click that mouse-button." The Mediatoday team, clockwise from top left: Roger de Giorgio, James Debono, Tim Diacono, Frederick Attard, Kevin Grech, Rachel Zammit Cutajar, Roger Mifsud, Adriana Farrugia, Daniela Vella, Matthew Agius, Jean Pierre Cassar, Teodor Reljic, Miriam Dalli, Matthew Vella, Daniel Mizzi, Saviour Balzan, Bianca Freddi-Clarke, Rachel Agius, Bobby Cesareo, Andy Farrugia, Veronica Mizzi and Claire Mifsud (not in picture Ray Attard, Chris Mangion, John Busuttil, John Pisani and Jurgen Balzan)