An exceptional issue of 220 pages sold at the price of 12.90 euros for six weeks; a symposium “to retrace these last seven decades and look forward to the next seven”, on Wednesday October 18 at the Maison de la radio, with the participation by video of Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft); a dinner for 350 guests, including members of the families of the founders Françoise Giroud and Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, but also former directors and collaborators (Michèle Cotta, Catherine Nay, Christophe Barbier, etc.).
Owner of The Express since four years, Alain Weill was waiting to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the weekly “associated with the history of the press” French impatiently. He even hoped to welcome Emmanuel Macron, before the attack in Arras, Friday October 13, monopolized the attention of the head of state. In place of the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, will dialogue with the American researcher in political science, Francis Fukuyama.
There would have been no party “if we hadn’t succeeded in our plan”, specifies the former boss of NextradioTV (BFM-TV, RMC). Upon its acquisition from the Altice group, in 2019, The Express lost 12 million euros. At the end of 2023, the magazine will still be in deficit, but the trend is reversed: “We will be profitable in the second half and [en 2024] »has delighted its owner 100% since this summer, and the purchase from Patrick Drahi of the 49% of the capital that the Franco-Israeli billionaire still owned.
“It has been twenty-three years since The Express had not experienced a growing year », continues Mr. Weill. No question, however, of providing figures: he reveals neither the amount agreed to become sole master on board (he had paid a symbolic euro, four years ago, to acquire 51% of the capital) nor that of the “limited losses” for the whole of 2023, which he still deplores.
“A paid information brand”
The initial project, however, went through several versions, and the ambition initially stated, which aimed to sell 200,000 copies each week, has largely survived. Rather than increasing the number of readers of this The Economist French style − a chimera when only “2.4% of French people subscribe to paid information” −the weekly launched into a “value strategy”.
Combining upscaling of content and over-qualification of its readership, it increased its selling price from 4.90 euros to 6.90 euros in three years. A future increase is not excluded. Alain Weill admits that L’Express “is the most expensive weekly”but he is satisfied with having swapped part of the public of retirees for active ones, lowering the average age of readers from 65 to less than 50.
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