On the decline of Yedioth and Maariv

Israel Hayom does not apologize for its success. In fact, the opposite is true — it is very proud of its success and thanks its readers for it. In light of recent reports and accusations flying about developments in Israel's printed press, it is worth looking at the facts.

Due to the bleak situation of Maariv newspaper, and the very real threat to its continued existence, quite a few people have pointed an accusatory finger at Israel Hayom. The newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth has also attributed its recent wave of dismissals to Israel Hayom. So it's time to look at the facts.

And the facts, for this purpose, are the figures presented by Target Group Index, which has covered the Israeli media market and exposure rates for many years. These figures are accepted by everyone.

Let's start with Maariv. According to the TGI reports, from 2000 to 2007 (when Israel Hayom was launched), the newspaper's exposure shrank from 27.1 percent to 17%. This steady decline meant that the paper lost 40% of its readers over the seven years prior to the launch of Israel Hayom.

And what happened to Yedioth in the same period? Again, according to the TGI figures, exposure to Yedioth shrank from 50.7% to 38.4% between 2000 and 2007. Even before Israel Hayom began printing, Yedioth lost around 24% of its readers.

And what about Haaretz? Its share of the market slipped from 8.9% in 2000 to 7.4% in 2007 — a fall of almost 17%.

In other words, the mass exodus of readers from both Yedioth and Maariv started well before Israel Hayom hit the streets and became Israel's most-read newspaper.

In fact, if we really want to be precise, this newspaper actually halted the flight of readers from the printed press: Israel Hayom actually brought readers back to newspapers and increased the percentage of the population reading newspapers.

So why do readers prefer us over the others-

Here's a fresh example: A few days ago, the lead headline in Yedioth heralded what appeared to be a rise in unemployment. By the end of the week, it turned out that the opposite was true and unemployment had actually fallen. This time, however, it wasn't the lead headline in Yedioth. Actually it didn't appear in Yedioth at all, or in Maariv. Still want an analysis-

When Israel Hayom began just over five years ago, Yedioth decided that the reason for our success was that we are a free newspaper. After all, it simply isn't possible that Israelis don't like their newspaper. And so, Yedioth decided to launch its own free newspaper, 24 Minutes.

This was a journalistic masterpiece of the kind that only the newspaper-that-once-had-a-nation could conjure up: a paper filled with headlines about weighty matters such as the size of the implants inserted into the breasts of a regular star of the gossip columns, or which reality TV star was spotted at the beach with someone who was not his girlfriend.

The Israeli reader, unfortunately, did not appreciate the effort and 24 Minutes was not around for long. One can assume that when it is recalled in the halls of Yedioth, nostalgia — if not tears — can be discerned on the faces of even the most-hardened senior officials there.

And ever since then, Yedioth has opposed free newspapers. Of course this too comes with certain limitations since, sorry to say, they too distribute on the hush-hush over 100,000 free copies of Yedioth every day, according to estimates.

Israel Hayom is a success, not just because we discovered that it is possible to give readers a good newspaper without draining their wallets. The main reason — which the editors at a paper like Yedioth have trouble internalizing — is that we never forget that we are Israelis, just as it states on the top, right-hand corner of page two every morning. It turns out that our readers really like that, and we thank them for it.