Why Dagbladet will not be around in 24 months

Dagbladet as we know it today is gone in two years, or even more aggressively – it will not survive 2010 if not the owners take drastic actions. Reducing your staff to face fewer customers is a very challenging process. You need to ensure that you only cut non critical functions. And who should select what is critical functions?

Dagbladet needs to decide what they want to be in 2 years. Do they want to be a paper with focus on news or a website with focus on news? Or they can choose to be a provider of culture, sports or politics. It can be a mix of them, but they need to decide – what is our main platform; and for whom do we write. Trying to cut costs to stay where they are today will only bring the end closer.

Dagbladet will need to be saved by their owners. The owners need to decide if the newspaper should be saved as it is today – and in that case they need to invest heavily in making Dagbladet more powerful than VG. Or they need to decide that VG is a too powerful competitor in Norway – and that there is only room for one big tabloid. Take can change the format to a magazine – or they can be even bolder – and stop printing the printed edition as of tomorrow. Being the first newspaper that is available only online could save the brand and the ideas.