Corriere della Sera to give away 20m free copies

Who says print journalism is dead? Whoever the naysayers are, they forgot to tell the owners of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading national newspaper, which will deliver 20m free copies of the daily on a single day in May.

The marketing stunt, coinciding with next month’s European parliamentary elections, is aimed at celebrating Italy’s economic recovery and promoting the relaunched website of the country’s best known newspaper as it tries to stem years of heavy losses.

The mass distribution will take place on a date in the second half of May that is still to be decided. The theme of the special edition is “La Ripresa” – The Recovery – consisting of special features tackling all aspects of the economic revival in Italy.

More than a dozen of Italy’s biggest advertisers have signed up to sponsor the special run. Pasta maker Barilla, chocolate group Ferrero, carmaker Fiat and Telecom Italia traditionally rank among Corriere’s top advertisers. The newspaper and its website had 458,000 subscribers in December.

The move comes amid a revival of consumer and business confidence in Italy after a crippling double-dip recession. The economy is forecast to grow 0.8 per cent this year after shrinking 1.9 per cent last year.

The uptick in sentiment has also coincided with the arrival of Italy’s new 39-year old reformist prime minister Matteo Renzi who took power in February.

Corriere della Sera, which was founded in Milan in 1876, is Italy’s national newspaper of record and its shareholders have traditionally reflected the Who’s Who of Italian power. However, like all in Italy’s media industry, it has been hard hit by falling advertising revenues and its parent company narrowly avoided bankruptcy last year.

The idea for the mass print run is Pietro Scott Jovane’s, new chief executive of RCS Mediagroup, who was previously head of Microsoft in Italy. Mr Scott Jovane was brought in last year by John Elkann, the scion behind carmaker Fiat that is the media group’s largest shareholder, owning a fifth of the company.

RCS Mediagroup’s net loss halved from €507m in 2012 to €218m last year as the group cut costs.

Mr Elkann who sits on the board of News Corp and The Economist has been instrumental in the creation of an advisory board at Corriere that includes Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP group and Xavier Niel, founder of the French telecoms operator Free.

Mr Scott Jovane has sold Corriere’s historic headquarters in Milan and is considering the introduction of paywalls to the website, steps that have proved divisive among staff and shareholders.

This story has been changed to amend the number of free copies from 50m to 20m