Lost in transition: Media innovations in the Netherlands

Original news production is a costly business. News production that lives up to a high quality standard has become even costlier. Due to a new attitude of both news consumers and advertisers - people living in the media, with its 24/7 online free news environments, rather than with the media - most news media in the Western world are going through a deep crisis. Publishers of regional newspapers in the Netherlands are amongst the hardest hit and worst performing news companies in Europe. They are losing audiences and advertisers to the Internet and are still unsuccessful in making a profit from that same Internet, as many case studies show.
The objective of this study is to explore to what extent and how regional newspapers in the Netherlands respond to the consequences of the loss in readers and advertisers. I investigate the current role of regional news media, innovation strategies of incumbent publishers and the potential of alternative local news business models. The over-arching central research question of this study is:
How can Dutch regional news media develop and implement innovation strategies in order to fulfil their democratic functions and being economically viable?