“Le Parisien” bets on the 2024 Olympics to win over readers and advertisers

With the Paris Olympics 2024, “Le Parisien” is playing at home and intends to take advantage of it. The daily, which is part of the same group as “Les Echos” and considers itself “the most sporting newspaper for generalists”, unveiled this Friday at the VivaTech show a large device to cover the event. “We have the ambition to be the benchmark media for the Olympic Games in Paris,” summed up its general manager, Sophie Gourmelen.

For this, the title is launching a new brand, “Le Parisien Olympique”, whose visual identity was designed internally and which is already available on all media: the Olympic newsletter, the new section of the site devoted to the event , the bimonthly Olympic notebook (launched in March), videos and social media accounts. A podcast will be added in September, hosted by the presenter Anne-Laure Bonnet who will interview former medal-winning athletes.

From sport to transport to housing and security, the event will be considered from every angle, thanks to the mobilization of the national editorial staff and the nine local editions, which will notably publish two guides for Ile-de-France residents at the time of the Games, devoted transport and festivities. ” The Parisian “ has also entered into a partnership with Insep (National Institute for Sport, Expertise and Performance), to monitor the preparation and daily life of the athletes of this institution, which trains a good number of French medalists. A health supplement will also be published in collaboration with the Institute.

Towards 200,000 subscribers

“The system will grow until the event, for which we will mobilize 200 journalists, including nearly fifty accredited for the competition”, underlined the deputy director of the editorial staff, Pierre Chausse. “Either a device ten times larger than that of a Football World Cup, for example, it tells you the importance for us of this event,” he added. The “Sports” department alone has around thirty journalists, on the 400 press cards of the “Parisien”.

One hundred years after those of 1924, the return of the Games to the French capital is a golden opportunity to win over new followers among readers and advertisers, and to achieve the ambitions of the digital transition plan, “Le Parisien 200,000”. Launched in 2020, it predicted that the milestone of 200,000 subscribers would be ped in 2024. “Perfectly on time”, according to Sophie Gourmelen, the newspaper announced that it already had nearly 150,000 digital and paper subscribers.

“Thanks to the digital transformation initiated three years ago, our paid circulation in France should be on the rise for the second consecutive year, which has not happened for fifteen years,” rejoiced the general manager. In 2022, it stands at 255,000 copies on average, according to the CMPA. With 150 million videos viewed per month (and 1.1 million subscribers on Youtube), “Le Parisien” is also the leading daily press brand on video, which makes it possible to reach a younger audience (a reader on three are under 35).

“In 2024, we have strong ambitions in terms of audience and development of our subscriptions, commitment and presence on social networks, and in particular video, one of our major strategic areas of development”, confirmed Sophie Gourmelen. The board should also take advantage of the event, which will whet the appetite of advertisers. In France, Magna anticipates growth in advertising market +7.2% in 2024 (compared to +4.6% in 2023).