Traditional media is fast falling behind online outlets as more people than ever before look to internet sources, social media and email newsletters for their daily news and information, according to a new EU report.
As news becomes more readily available online via the internet and social media platforms, readers are turning increasingly away from traditional news outlets, according to the latest European Media Industry Outlook report put out by the European Commission.
ONLINE NEWS: A FAST GROWING MARKET
The report shows that most Europeans consume news daily, with television on the top of the heap with regards to the source of information. This is followed by online media, radio, social media and the printed press. In real numbers, 42% of European consumers get their regular news fix from online media outlets and another 44% use social media.
Online media was the fastest growing sector in terms of usage, owing to factors such as better internet saturation, improvements in online offers, and younger audiences who use the internet for their primary source of information. The report found that 40% of young people aged 15 to 24 get news online, with 46% also using social media platforms.
Smartphones and near universal internet coverage have facilitated this trend, with 77% of the respondents questioned saying they got at least some of their news online via their phones. Consumers also stated that they like the interactive qualities online news offers, such as sharing links to stories and discussing articles with friends.
STRONG GROWTH
The digital news market has seen an incredible 60% growth in terms of revenue share, going from €2.5 billion in 2016 to €3.7 billion by 2021. Print press is still four times bigger, but its share is dwindling: total income in 2016 was €22 billion, but that’s now down to €16.1 billion in a significant 27% drop.
Furthermore, the online market’s revenues are forecast to grow by another 22% by 2025, which is considerably more than television or radio, who are only expected to see 11% boosts. Print is predicted to see a loss of 14% in the same time frame.
Advertisers are also seeing the benefits of putting their funds toward digital, with more and more buying space on sites to the tune of €2 billion in 2021.
All week long, emails falsely claiming that recipients are threatened with “criminal proceedings for acts of a sexual nature” have been hitting inboxes of those connected to the Principality. Here’s what to watch out for.
On 18th May, the Monegasque government sent out an official communiqué warning residents of a scam email circulating the Principality.
“This is a malicious attempted phishing campaign with the purpose of defrauding potential victims who would respond to the message,” reads the communiqué. “This false summons refers to alleged “criminal proceedings for acts of a sexual nature” brought against the recipient of the message.”
Monaco Life has now seen a copy of the email, which tells the recipient that their name figures on a list of those implicated in criminal proceedings, with particular reference to paedophilia, pornographic images and videos of minors, exhibitionism and online masturbation.
A copy of the scam email seen by Monaco Life
The fraudulent email requests that the recipient reads an attached PDF document and replies to the email “as soon as possible”.
Though clumsily written, the email features a logo similar to that of Monaco’s Police Department in the header as well as an Interpol seal and a QR code. It also lists a fake summons number and reference code, and uses the name and title of Régis Bastide, Monaco’s Police Commissioner, to add more false credit to the email.
Those with a keen eye will notice the unofficial email address from where the email has been sent. In the case of the email seen by Monaco Life, the address is: messagerie.police.gouv.mc@gmail.com.
As per the government-issued statement regarding the scam, “the only email addresses used by government services are of the following type: xxxx@gouv.mc.”
What to do if you receive the email
As reported previously by Monaco Life, the advice of the government is to: avoid opening the PDF, not respond to the sender, immediately inform Monaco’s cyber department of the email via cyber@gouv.mc, and to then delete the original fraudulent email.
In the space of just nine years, AS Monaco Basketball have gone from toiling in the French third division to a place in the Euroleague Final Four.
The Roca Team of 2014 is unrecognisable to the European behemoth that is about to take centre stage at the Euroleague Final Four in Kaunas, Lithuania on Friday. From the ownership to the players and even the stadium, everything has changed.
Les Monégasques were toiling in the third tier in 2013. By 2015, the team had not only secured back-to-back promotions, but also a new owner, in the form of Sergey Dyadechko. The businessman arrived in Monaco in 2012, having survived an assassination attempt in his native Ukraine, and under his stewardship, he would ultimately guide the Roca Team to the top of the European game.
The changing face of the Salle Gaston Médecin
Year after year, the club’s objectives have been revised upwards: “It’s a team with means,” said Amara Sy, who wore the colours of the Principality between 2015-2019.
They certainly put those means to good use. Just a year after promotion, the club won one of three consecutive Leaders Cups. But beyond France, the club set its sights on Europe; an objective they would soon achieve.
As the club grew, so did their home: the Salle Gaston Médecin. The hall, which sits within the Stade Louis II, was renovated in 2014 and 2015 before an expansion, in line with the Roca Team’s increasing profile, in 2016. Further expansions would be necessary in the future.
The Salle Gaston Médecin in 2016 by Gael13011
It was a 3,000-capacity court that hosted the EuroCup in 2019 in what would be just the first of many European adventures. Their first season was curtailed by the Covid pandemic, but they wouldn’t have to wait long to get their hands on some European silverware.
The following year, and in their first full season, Monaco won the EuroCup.
“As soon as there is the possibility of playing a full EuroCup season… Bam, we’re champions of Europe!” said former Roca Team player Sy. Their place in the Euroleague was booked.
Monaco profit from Russian expulsion
Consequently, further expansions of the hall were necessary. In 2021, the Salle Gaston Médecin could hold 4,000 spectators, slightly below Euroleague regulations, but which allowed them to compete in their first campaign in the top tier of European basketball.
In the space of just five years, Monaco had gone from a minnow to a giant, but they certainly weren’t a European giant quite yet. Their budget reflected that; it was one of the lowest of all Euroleague teams.
However, despite that, Monaco created a roster capable of competing; a roster which included Mike James, fresh from a spell with the Brooklyn Nets. He would be the talisman to guide Monaco to the playoffs, although their route to them was certainly unconventional.
Should Monaco not have made the playoffs, their future in the Euroleague would have been in considerable doubt. For large parts of the season, that looked like being the case, but a bold decision by the club’s director to bring back Sasa Obradovic to replace Zvezdan Mitrovic paid dividends.
Photo of Sasa Obradovic by Luke Entwistle, Monaco Life
The returning Serbian coach oversaw a Monégasque surge up the table, although it still looked insufficient to lead them into the playoffs. Their qualification was sealed off the court rather than on it.
The expulsion of Russian teams from the Euroleague following President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine handed Monaco a lifeline and gave them a shot at reaching the playoffs, which they took.
Monaco knocked at the door of the Final Four but didn’t knock it down, losing a five-game thriller to Olympiacos in the quarter-finals. However, their run had ensured one thing: their continuation in the Euroleague for the following season.
Just a year after its latest renovation, the Salle Gaston Médecin was once again transformed, lifting the capacity to over 4,600, whilst replacing the antiquated plastic yellow seats with a sleek wooden design.
The new Salle Gaston Médecin by Luke Entwistle, Monaco Life
The changes to the roster were also wholesale. The team that took to the court at the beginning of the 2022/23 season was unrecognisable. By the start of the season, none of the 2020/21 cohort remained, and seven of the 12 players on the roster for this season were new to the Roca Team entirely.
However, the era of annual makeovers is over; continuity is the operative word.
“We want to build a stable roster and we want that continuity. We want to avoid situations where we’re significantly changing the roster. Once you reach Euroleague level, you cannot build up the team the same as you’ve been doing before,” Yefimov told Monaco Life at the start of the season.
The recruitment has been an unequivocal success. The arrivals of champion of France Élie Okobo and Jordan Loyd have lifted the creative burden off the shoulders of James. This year, it has been the collective that has triumphed rather than the individual. The result is a logical and comfortable qualification for the end of season play-offs, and beyond that the first Final Four qualification for a French team since 1997.
Whilst the Roca Team can certainly be defined by interminable change this past decade, there are figures of continuity that are inseparable from their success. Notably Yefimov, the club’s director who joined the club in 2015, and whose acumen and recruitment have allowed Monaco to build year-on-year.
Yakuba Ouattara by Pascal Della Zuana/ Icon Sport
Then there is Ouattara, whose personal growth runs parallel to the club that he now captains.
“Our objectives are higher and higher as the seasons pass, and the club gives itself the means to reach them,” said the France international after the club’s qualification for the Final Four.
Monaco are now a European behemoth. With that status, the era of great and rapid change is over. For Yefimov, Fedoricsev and the rest of the Roca Team, the focus will turn towards consolidation.
After last year’s play-off qualification, Yefimov told MonacoLife, “I don’t believe anyone could have imagined where we ended up.”
The clearest sign of the club’s growth is that this season, no one can be surprised by Monaco’s presence in Kaunas. At the beginning of the season, Obradovic said, “We want to write another chapter in the club’s history.” And like each chapter in this “fairytale” story, the next one is always better than the last.
There were 23,400 actual or attempted home robberies in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in 2022, the third highest figure in the whole country.
France’s statistical agency INSEE puts out a yearly report on the regions of France where the most burglaries or attempted burglaries occur. In 2022, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) region hit 7.5 burglaries per 1,000 homes, far higher than the national average of 5.8.
In real numbers, this means 23,400 PACA homes were at least under threat of robberies last year, putting the region solidly in third place nationwide, with only French Guyana at a rate of 11 homes per 1,000 and Île-de-France, the region including Paris, at 7.9, above it.
HIGH CRIME AREAS
The numbers for PACA were pushed up in part due to high criminal activity in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, which has France’s highest number of reported burglaries at 11.4 per 1,000 households, and the Vaucluse, which saw 9.6.
The other departments of the region fared a bit better. The Var had 5.9 robberies per 1,000 homes, followed by the Alpes-Maritimes at 4.5, 3.8 for the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and 2.1 for the Hautes-Alpes, one of the nation’s least targeted departments.
Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence, Arles and Avignon were amongst the hardest hit by criminals, but were less affected than Saint Tropez and Vidauban. Coastal Alpes-Maritimes homes were also more likely to be targeted than those inland.
SOCIOECONOMIC DISPARITY
On French territory, municipalities located in dense population areas with strong income inequalities and a high median standard of living were the most exposed to offenses. Rates of burglaries were nearly twice as high in cities than in rural settings, and in what INSEE calls “areas of attraction”, such beach destinations. Intruders tend to look for easy pickings, so it’s not surprising that second homes, which sit empty at least part of the year, are often targeted.
“[The burglary rate] is on average 5.4 in areas with less than 50,000 inhabitants, 6 in those between 50,000 and 200,000 inhabitants, 6.3 in areas between 200,000 and 700,000 inhabitants, and 11 in the Marseille-Aix-en-Provence catchment area, the most populated,” said the report of the PACA figures.
PACA is also notable as being the only region where poor municipalities have higher robbery rates than the richest ones, on average. This regional anomaly can be explained by Avignon and Marseilles being relatively “poor” though with high break-in rates. That being said, the rates are higher where income gaps are biggest, being four times those of towns where the disparities are smaller.
DECLINING FIGURES
Whilst the report isn’t comforting, it should be noted that there has been an overall 9% decline in home thefts in the region between 2016 and 2022. The national average is 15% less.
A rom-com movie project situated in a real-life fairy-tale Principality is the recipe that Dutch indie film Producer Muriël Horst, owner of Equs Film, is playing up with a side of pomp at the Cannes Film Festival.
‘Cooking Up A Country’ is a screenplay in development based on a self-published novel by the British writer James Vasey, a part-time resident of the self-declared independent Principality of Seborga, a hilltop medieval village based just over the border on the Italian Riviera.
‘Cooking Up A Country’ is a love story between an English academic and a Princess, who happens to be a chef in the village restaurant. It is set against a battle for survival of a traditional lifestyle in a globalised world, a problem that the English outsider and Michelin star chef try to solve. Like fish ‘n’ chips and Barolo wine, Ben and Alessandra are an unlikely pairing, yet their shared passion for food and wine, and the community where they finally find peace, are the binding agent in their recipe for love.
Granted irrevocable independence in 954 by the Counts of Ventimiglia, Seborga was ceded to the King of Sardinia and Savoy in 1729. However, in 1960 local flower grower Giorgio Carbone revived faded dreams of independence claiming that the sale was never legally registered and declared himself His Tremendousness Prince Giorgio 1st.
Princess Nina and British writer James Vasey. Photo credit: Kaidi-Katariin Knox
The picturesque village of Seborga has just 300 residents and overlooks its wealthy neighbour the Principality of Monaco with whom Seborga shared two rulers in the 16th century.
The movie project is supported by Seborga’s real-life Princess Nina Menegato who says that it will shine a light on the micro-nation’s efforts to seek official recognition. “We have been working on this for some years and this film would give Seborga a lot of visibility and create great economic opportunities. ‘Cooking Up A Country’ is not just a fun love story, but it is also about bigger themes that the world is struggling with,” said Nina.
Seborga, a self-declared Principality. Photo credit: Kaidi-Katariin Knox
Equs Film owner and Producer Muriël Horst is bringing Seborga’s ceremonial guard to the Cannes Film Festival for a photo-op on Sunday 21st May and to accompany interested partners to the Principality, including Producer Mark Foglino (The King’s Speech), Remco Mastwijk CEO visual effects company Filmmore, and Roberto Lo Crasto, Head of Production at the Genova Liguria Film Commission. Seborga is just a one-hour drive from Cannes and the guests will be granted an audience with Princess Nina, a ceremonial tour and a lunch to taste local culinary specialities.
Horst, who is also a part-time resident of the Principality of Seborga, says the project literally came to her. “Have you ever found yourself in a place that is just like a movie? And you are reading a book about that place that is so good and funny that you wished it really should be a movie? So that’s what I did. I set on this journey to share the story of ‘Cooking Up A Country’ with the world,” said Muriël Horst.
Monaco has celebrated Maria Callas’ centenary with a spectacular gala concert and awards ceremony dedicated to the legendary soprano in the Monte-Carlo Opera House, attended by the Princely Couple.
The Maria Callas Monaco Gala and Awards, inaugurated in 2021, is inspired by the legendary gala which was first held in Monaco in 1960, where the great Opera Diva Maria Callas, hailed as “La Divina” (the Divine one), enchanted Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco with her unique voice.
The American-born Greek soprano often spent time in Monaco with her lover, the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. On display throughout the Maria Callas Gala and Awards on Saturday evening were her personal memorabilia, including her identity card and a Gucci bag gifted to her by Princess Grace.
On 12th May, Prince Albert and Princess Charlene joined more than 300 guests, including famous Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, for the gala and awards.
Ioanna Efthimiou, president and founder of the Monaco Gala and Awards, says she wanted to pay tribute to Callas’ remarkable career.
“I want to bring the legend back to Monaco, in the place that embraced, loved and admired Callas the most,” said Efthimiou, an internationally renowned contemporary artist. “I want Callas lovers to revive this mythical and historical era by offering them the opportunity to live a journey of art, refinement and luxury inspired by the magical world of Opera.”
MC Emi Livaniou, Nana Mouskouri, Ioanna Efthimiou and presenter George Davlas. Photo credit: Eric Mathon/Prince’s Palace
More than 300 guests watched on as Prince Albert and Princess Charlene presented the Maria Callas awards, designed by Brazilian artist in Monaco Marcos Marin, to several people in recognition of their work in opera, environment, health and education, and culture.
They included Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, Greek actress Mimi Denisi, and opera singers Vassiliki Karagianni, Victoria Buleeva and Kristine Opolais, who performed for guests with the Orchestre de Paris in the Salle Garnier of the Monte-Carlo Opera.
Award winner Victoria Buleeva performing with the Orchestre de Paris. Photo credit: Eric Mathon / Prince’s Palace
The evening culminated in a dinner at the Salle Empire of the Hôtel de Paris where an art auction by Art Curial Monaco was also held, featuring works by international artists including Jacob Vilato, Pablo Picasso’s nephew. Money raised from the auction went towards the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation.
Ahead of the gala, Prince Albert and Princess Charlene inaugurated the ‘Maria Callas – 100 years’ exhibition at the Monte-Carlo Casino.
Prince Albert and Princess Charlene looking at Maria Callas memorabilia. Photo credit: Eric Mathon / Prince’s Palace
Maria Callas was born on 2nd December 1923 and died of a heart attack in Paris on 16th September 1977 at just 52 years of age.
A series of commemorative events are being held across the globe in recognition of one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century.
Photo above: Prince Albert and Princess Charlene with Ioanna Efthimiou on the left and award designer Marcos Marin on the right. Photo credit: Eric Mathon / Prince’s Palace
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