International Herald Tribune

The International Herald Tribune (IHT), a Paris-based newspaper now owned by The New York Times but rooted in France since its founding in 1887, has often styled itself as “the world's first global newspaper.” The claim has a great deal going for it. Printed, as of 2007, in 33 cities around the world and with a paid circulation of some 250,000 copies in more than 180 countries, the IHT is indeed a global newspaper presence. No more than 15 percent of its readership is located in any one “home” market—although roughly two-thirds of the copy sales are in Europe and the Middle East—with much of the remaining distribution coming throughout Asia.

What also makes the newspaper “global,” however, is the fact that it is edited from an international perspective. Its typical reader is thought to be a “citizen of the world,” a business or professional leader with broad international interests—who often reads the newspaper as a supplement to his or her own local or national press. While both news and advertising content vary to some degree from edition to edition, the IHT's principle purpose is to present an international overview that will place the news of any region in a broader, global context. What this often means, of course, is that readers must turn elsewhere for deeper local coverage.

Many of the readers of the International Herald Tribune are international travelers or expatriate residents—with a strong command of [Page 762]English—the language of globalization. But most of these readers (at least two-thirds are other than Americans) have come to regard the paper as their own “letter from home” while they live or travel abroad. The audience is affluent and well educated. Household income averages well above $150,000—and over 90 percent of the readers have a university degree. IHT journalists face the stimulating challenge of writing and editing for one of the world's most sophisticated, cosmopolitan audiences. Such an audience also allows the newspaper to realize a larger-than-normal portion of its revenues from circulation—most of its copies are sold on newsstands, at a price equating to more than US$2 a copy. The IHT's demographics also allow the paper to charge an unusually high price to advertisers, who prize its influential readership.

At the same time, the broadly scattered nature of this audience means that distribution costs are much higher than is normally the case. This fact, combined with the often-sluggish nature of international advertising markets, has made it difficult for the newspaper to achieve dependable profits in recent years—and, in some years, has experienced substantial operating deficits—though it has been a steadily profitable enterprise at other stages in its history.

Compounding the IHT's business challenges has been the growth of alternative sources of quality international news. Daily competition for readers comes principally now from the European and Asian editions of both the London-based Financial Times and New York's Wall Street Journal. At the same time, local and national newspapers have become increasingly able and inclined to present quality news coverage of the global scene. In addition, competition for large multinational advertising campaigns comes from a host of weekly and monthly magazines which now circulate aggressively across international borders.

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