Decline and New Scenarios of Italian Financial Newspapers

Italian financial publications are facing a tough environment, which caused many of them to abandon publications in recent years.

At least nine titles have been lost over the past ten years, but also a good number of newcomers. Should we investigate the Italian financial newspaper and publishing sector, we could think it’s a traditional and stable market, with a healthy segmentation in terms of specialties, targets and contents. But here is the point. During the last ten years, financial media have probably suffered more than general media, paying the toll of the financial crisis with drops in the stock market values, newsrooms’ trims and closures. Financial newspaper Finanza & Mercati closed in 2012, together with sister weekly Borsa & Finanza. The same happened to weekly Panorama Economy, while its main competitor, Il Mondo, founded in 1992, abandoned publications in 2014. The same destiny later affected monthly magazines like Gente Money and Investire.

What’s behind the decline of Financial Newspapers in Italy

Time does not flow without any changes. Some heads have been acquired and relaunched by new editors, like Investire, which nowadays has a monthly print edition and Economy, focused on the Italian Economy. Borsa & Finanza was transformed a couple of years ago in an online newsmedia and new titles spread, like Firstonline and Dealflower, the youngest financial publication, founded in 2021. Legal newsmedia Legalcommunity splitted, giving birth to Financialcommunity and the newstands had to make room for new magazines, like WeWealth.

Today, Italian financial newspapers face a tough environment, like all newspapers, but the business models of the newcomers and the strength of the old brands are able to face the ups and downs of the market. They also can count on strong shareholders like Confindustria, the association of manufacturing and service companies in Italy, which publishes Il Sole 24 Ore, first Italian Economic paper, RCS Mediagroup, a listed company owning Corriere della Sera and its financial weekly L’Economia, and Class Editori, the publisher of MF/Milano Finanza and several other economic papers and magazines, like Italia Oggi, Capital, Patrimoni, Lombard.

Figures of the market

The latest figures on the Italian advertising market, clearly explain that the difficult times are not over. The total inflows from advertising for newspapers and magazines in 2022 amount at less than 500,000 Euros, about 1% down compared to 2021.

The circulation of Il Sole 24 Ore is around 140,000 copies (print and digital), compared to 250,000 ten years ago and 300,000 in the late ’90s. The circulation of newspaper La Repubblica – which traditionally disputed the first place among Italian newspapers with Corriere della sera – in ten years collapsed from 425,000 to 150,000 copies, while Il Corriere della Sera today leads again the rankings with 264,000 copies (444,000 in 2012).

Financial PR in Italy

Such a situation means hard times both for the press, PR and media relations industry, but also new forms of journalism and communication tools. Like the the so-called branded content and native advertising, which stand alongside the traditional corporate publishing tools.

Companies looking for visibility in the Italian media must face a constantly moving scenario, where financial PR agencies are an essential partner to successfully surf the changes. The Italian media relations industry is well structured both in terms of specialties and dimensions, varying from the big multinational agencies to the medium (and actually much more flexible) players and to single PR professionals, often former journalists, competing in a fikle market.

In fact, just as they do not know the Italian media landscape, foreign companies approaching Italy also do not know the PR market and they often follow a trial and error strategy.

A better way to choose a PR partner would be to focus on agencies with a good track record in their specific sector and collecting information on their single experiences with competitor companies and on the expertise of the PR professionals that will tale on the day by day job: they will make all the difference.

Should you need Financial PR and media relations expertise in Italy, StampaFinanziaria can provide both, thanks to its long track record in asset management and the banking industry, as well as in the labour market and manufacturing companies.

For up-to-date information on financial media in Italy, contact our market intelligence team at: info@stampafinanziaria.it