It's a Tabloid World

You can summarize the crisis facing German newspapers these days in one phrase: generation gap. While 80-85% of people between 40 and 69 read a daily newspaper, according to a survey by the German Association of Newspaper Publishers, the number falls to 72% for those 30-39, and to 63% for those 20-29. "The interest of young people is going down," says association spokeswoman Anja Pasquay. "They don't read newspapers any more."

But Axel Springer — publisher of Bild , Europe's best-selling newspaper — thinks it has a solution: Welt-Kompakt , a new tabloid slated for an eight-week trial run in...