Local radio  is alive and well some better than others, but that’s down to a variety of factors. Still dominant (relative to it’s peers) is Highland Radio with a reach of 69% of its franchise area. On the other hand is Kfm who only 24% its franchise area. To be frank, it’s easy to see how that would happen in their situation with such a variety of radio sources available in Kildare – including ‘spill over from some of the Dublin Stations franchises.  

In order to digest this you’d have to take this in two chunks. The first part we will deal with the ‘national stations’ and later we will deal with the ‘local stations’.

As with most research/analysis – the numbers normally speak for themselves, as they do in this case. The comparison in this case is with the previous year – the exact twelve months – July to June in each year. I struggle to understand why the likes of the BCI and BAI, when issuing these results, will draw their comparisons to  a different survey period – but anyway, these are like with like. 

As we await the JNLR tomorrow, I heard an interesting conversation on the said medium. I was listening to the fact that Mr Yates is (allegedly) none to keen on the 3:30am awakenings so that he can present the morning show on Newstalk so is looking for a new slot (allegedly).

June Figures: normally a strange time for the media with schools drawing to a close, the leaving cert commencing and the annual holiday migration.

The “hand of god” having dealt us a blow earlier in the year means that the World Cup would not drag up the circulations of any of the papers.

The Sunday Business Post ran adverts for Sherry FitzGerald last Sunday where the adverts carried QR codes. The codes, once read in an appropriate reader on a Smartphone, will link the advert to the sherry FitzGerald website. And fair enough, it’s a bit of innovation in an arena that slow to innovate.

A follow-up article this week gave the impression that this was somewhat ‘cutting edge’. Whilst Sherry may have been the first to use the QR code in an advert, its far from cutting edge.

The Times stuck a paywall around their content yesterday 15th June. There will be huge interest in this paywall concept from a variety of sources:

The News International Counting Dept (aka Finance). The bean counters and shareholders will be holding their breath the see what the up take will be and how the ‘markets’ react. They will have to make some sort of shareholders statement as to the uptake one would suggest as they opted out of the eABC last month and, therefore have no visible visitor numbers.

Perhaps, for certain publications, we may have been a tad hasty in the comments for April’s figures. Or indeed it may just show the fickle nature of the newspaper buying public.

The morning market was up marginally mainly due to the tabloids. The end of the Premiership, start of the GAA and the playoffs for the Heineken Cup all contributing to the copy sales. But they are no where near their levels from 2009 with the market down nearly 28,000.

A marginal decrease in the mornings this month. Taking into account the ‘disruption’ in the buying cycle for Easter and School holidays – its not a bad result. 

However the year on year picture is very bleak. The tabloids account for 24,000 of the 29,000 drop in the market year on year. Just how much more blood letting can that tabloids take is anyone’s guess.   

I came across a company who were selling the virtues of their expertise in Web Design and SEO.

I couldn’t complain about the Design side (although design is subjective in the first case) but I would have to take issue with their efforts in the sphere of SEO.

I think where the problem arises is that the end client was blindsided as some point, given a spin like a whirling dervish.

Every month, circulation falls by another small amount, but it’s only when you make a direct comparison to the previous year that one really sees the levels of decline. The market as a whole down 74,000 year on year. Sundays down 45,000 and the morning back 37,000.  

In the mornings the Irish Daily Mail had a bad month down nearly 4,000 copies. It’s Sunday title also experienced a month on Month drop of 4,600. the buying public can the so fickle giving up on a publication when the promotions run out.