While major national newspaper groups in Italy (like those of the Agnelli family of FIAT fame), such as La Stampa and laRepubblica are being sold, smaller local daily newspapers, like Il Centro, are thriving, showing that the newspaper business can still succeed with the proper strategy.
The phenomenon is also being felt in the U.K., where the daily national The Telegraph was recently sold to Germany’s Alex Springer for 575 million British pounds (U.S. $771 million).
Founded in 1867 and based in Turin, La Stampa lost 15.7 percent of its circulation in 2025, and is being sold for a reported 25 million euro (U.S. $29 million) to the Italian SAE group.
Rome’s laRepubblica, which was founded in 1976, lost 11.6 percent of its circulation in 2025. It is in negotiations with Greece’s Theodore Kyriakou, owner of Antenna TV network, for up to 120 million euro or U.S. $139 million. (Kyriakou, in turn, is offering 90 million euro or U.S. $105 million.)
Meanwhile, Il Centro, which was founded in 1986 in Pescara and serves the central region of Abruzzo, has recorded a 9.1 percent increase in readership since 2025 and now reaches 217,000 daily readers. This is especially impressive considering that the whole population of the Abruzzo region is 1.27 million (compared to the 2.7 million of the city of Rome). However, the region has an additional one million people of Abruzzo origins living overseas.
Il Centro is owned by a group that includes the regional TV station Rete8, which is based in Chieti, one of Abruzzo’s four provinces.
Since 2024, Il Centro’s editor-in-chief has been 56-year-old Luca Telese, host of several TV shows on Italy’s La7 TV network, including In Onda.
In April 2025, VideoAge‘s Dom Serafini moved his weekly feature about overseas talents of Abruzzo origins from the Il Messaggero newspaper to Il Centro, thus increasing its Italian and international visibility.
Pictured above, l. to r.: Luca Telese, Dom Serafini, Il Centro‘s managing editor Domenico Ranieri.
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