JNLR 2016Q3 National Listenership

Without sounding the alarm bells, the first notable in the research this quarter was another fall in the overall radio listenership figure, to 82% or 2,977,000 people every day. It dropped 27,000 on the year and 15,000 on the previous book. It’s still a very healthy figure and better than some of the other media stats facing a constant barrage of disruption, but the trend is most definitely downward and has been since around 2010. The different stations have had varying degrees of success/failure. RTE1 had good quarter adding 4,000 on the previous book and 12,000 on the year leaving

JNLR 2016Q3 Dublin Listenership

Like the National picture, the Dublin one is dominated by the downturn in the overall radio listenership down to 77% or 800,000 people every day. This is down four points on the previous year and down 16,000 listeners on the previous book. The trend graphic is a stark picture of a declining listenership in the capital. Out of the thirteen stations in Dublin, only three managed an increased book on book figure and only two compared to twelve months ago. RTE1, 98FM and TXFM were the only stations to add numbers book on book which can’t be the most positive

JNLR 2016Q3 Top 30 and Station Programmes

In the tables below a comparison is drawn only if the time slots are the same as the period which it’s being compared to. If it can’t be made, then the comparative figure it’s left blank. Therefore in the Gains/Falls only programmes that have directly comparable time slots are included. I threw everything in in one lot and left our some of the java widgets used in previous occasions. They seem to rebel against mobile devices! And just on mobiles, there’s very little I can do about tables – they don’t like ‘responsive’.      Gains: Year On Year Programme

JNLR 2016Q3 Cork Listenership

Overall Cork listenership dropped marginally to 82% or 341,000 down 2,000. There were some small increases for Red FM, small in comparison to some of the gains it made in previous surveys. They now reach 29% of their franchise with 120,000 listeners. 96FM slipped back by 2,000 to 109,000 and they are now being actively chased for second spot by RTE1 who had a good book adding 8% to their listenership in the region. RTE1 finished at 106,000 only 3,000 behind 96FM. C103, still a way back added 3,000 on the book to 73,000 and Today FM lost 8% of

JNLR 2016Q3 Regionals and Local

There’s too much here to go into with any detail. I’ve tried to get all the stations in so they get a shout (which is not always the case unfortunately). You can do your own interpretation if you want.   16Q3 16Q2 +/- +/- ch 15Q2 +/- +/- ch Any Radio 1714 81% 1731 81% 17 0% 1% 1735 83% -21 -2% -1% Radio 1 561 26% 556 26% 5 0% 1% 559 27% 2 -1% 0% Newstalk 249 12% 260 12% -11 0% -4% 289 14% -40 -2% -14% Today FM 207 10% 221 10% -14 0% -6% 254

September 2016 ABC Newspaper Circulation

The September ABC figures today do little to stir the digits into tapping the keys. All very much as expected with some of the gains made in the July/August period slowly dwindling away this month. The Sun fell back 1,500 but much of that was self-inflicted. At one point (May) they were running at near 2,000 copies per month in ‘bulks’ but this shrunk to 530 bulks for September and probably accounts for most of their fall. The Star and The Mirror held on to what they had last month and overall the tabloids were back just over 1,000 copies.

August 2016 ABC Newspaper Circulation

If there’s one thing we learn from the figures this month, it’s that there’s a particular fickleness to tabloid readers. I said in June that the Sun’s €.50 promotion could have cost the company in the region of €600k in foregone revenue for that month. And you’d expect some ROI on that, but the figure for this month is 1,700 above May and a lonely 34 copies above April. The Star is on a downward trajectory (see graphic) coming in at 51,900, 600 down on the month. The Mirror manages to hang on to their previous months figure. The graphic

ABC Jan-June 2016 Overview

If you ever find yourself at soiree, you know the ones where the Ferrero Rocher are tumbling about with reckless abandonment and you are asked ‘how’s the newspaper business in Ireland’ the most succinct answer, where your inquisitor will need to ask little else, is: “Every week we sell 1.5m less newspapers that we did five years ago”. The six month ABC’s were released today or the Island of Ireland Report as its otherwise known. The report shows that newspapers in Ireland are having a torrid time. The market, for National newspapers, is down 6.2% with the morning newspaper market

ABC Jan-June 2016 Sunday Market

The Sunday Independent dropped below two hundred thousand to land on 199,000 and even 12,000 bulks couldn’t save them. They lost 14,000 over the year or 6.7% slightly above the overall Sunday Market decline. They further widened the gap between themselves and nearest rival, the Sunday World who had a bad first half dropping 15,000copies (unfortunate top spot accolade for that decline) over the year. It fell just shy of 9% of a decline but was eclipsed by the percentage falls of the Mirror and People. The Sunday Business Post, although falling 1,134 copies, did do the “least worst” as

ABC Jan-June 2016 Morning Market

The top selling paper in the morning market remains the Irish Independent selling 102,000 every day down 7,000 (6%) on the previous year. It has nearly 17,000 in multiple copy sales, up slightly from last year, with 83.5% of its circulation figure ‘actively purchased’. The certificate also shows that it has 1,602 ‘digital subscriptions’, so there is a measure of migration in their 7,000 reduction in sales over the year with at least some of that moving to the digital platform. Its nearest rival is the Irish Times, in at 72,000, down 4,000 (5.5%) on the previous year. It too

ABC Circulation July 2016

Even if a few papers grace us with figures, the monthly figures still churn away. July ABC’s today and for many a tabloid it’s a drop from the previous month of European football. The Tabloids are down nearly 4,000 but looking at The Sun it would seem that their pricing promotion pad off this month in recruiting some purchasers as their post promotion July is higher than their pre-promotion May figure by 7,000. The Mail is back 5,000 on the month but you couldn’t attribute that to European football. The only notable in the Sunday market is the Sunday Sun

ABC Test

The Sunday tabloids, in the main, fell below the Sunday market fall percentage. The Sunday Mirror and Sunday People by far underperformed compared to the market and are currently falling at a double digit pace at 13% each. Those are aggressive levels of decline especially for The People who are currently at just under 10,000 copies each Sunday. The Daily Star Sunday has all but given up on the Republic in terms of marketing, but still manages to find 15,000 customers to buy its product every Sunday. The Sunday Sun survived the drop felt by its direct competitors through a

June 2016 Irish ABC Newspaper circulation

The figures today bring us to the halfway point in the year. Like last month, there are a few numbers below the surface distorting reality – which I’ll endeavour to bring to the surface. The most notable number is that of The Sun who had a sale of 69,000 for the month, an increase of 19% on the previous month. Initially, the paper declared it was going to run a €0.50 promotion throughout the Euro’s until the 10th June, coinciding with the cup final. However, they decided to stick with it for the whole of the month of July. A

May 2016 ABC Circulation

May circulation figures arrived and the expression ‘swings and roundabouts’ has never been more appropriate. There seems to have been much movement in the figures and many of the stirrings are below the surface. The Daily Mirror stayed stationary in comparison to April at 39,000. The Sun dropped back 1,700 on the month but is still marginally ahead of last year.  Overall the tabloids were ahead by close to 3,000 on the month. In the Sunday market the big faller was the Sunday Times where it dropped 3,600 on the month to 73,419. Title May-16 May-15 Apr-16 Y/Y M/M %

ABC Newspaper Sales – a breakdown

It’s as good a time as any to examine the underlying conditions that account for newspaper sales in the ABC circulation figures and this month (May 2016) we have the whole spectrum of allowables in the various publications. Below is a table the papers who have “sales” that fall into categories other than single copy retails sales – i.e. sales that are occurring outside your normal retail environment. These are perfectly legitimate and come with some strict caveats set out by the ABC. Your normal Sale is “A copy sold to a retailer, on a sale or return basis, for

Half price for the Sun

As of May 28 the Sun and Sunday Sun will be €0.50 – but just for the duration of the Euros – effectively all of June and about half of July. Half their normal price in the republic (Normally €1.00) they have gone for a more complex pricing structure on Northern Ireland where the promotion is running as well. It will be 25p Monday to Friday (from 50p), 35p on Saturday (again from 50p) and 50p on Sunday (from 70p). It’s noteworthy in that it’s the first time in a while that pricing has been used as a stick to

April 2016 ABC Newspaper Sales

If you saw last month’s figures you may have been lulled in a false scene of security by some of the numbers. But April is most definitely payback time. The Cheltenham pin-prickers and multiple tabloid purchases have all but disappeared and the tabloids took a knock for 4,400 copies collectively month on month. The Daily Star took the brunt of that blow shedding 3,000 copies on the month, but, on a positive note, it’s ahead of where it was in February so perhaps the pages thrown at the festival yielded some dividends. Nothing really spectacular happened in the morning market

ABC Circulation March 2016

Before we dive into the numerics we have to reacquaint ourselves with some of the social aspects of the month gone: St Patrick’s Day, All Ireland Club Finals, Cheltenham, Easter and the 1916 Commemorations and a shutdown of primary and secondary schools for nearly three weeks (which disrupts household patterns which might knock on to purchasing behavior). The main competition this month is usually between the tabloids fighting for those horse racing punters looking for advice. The tabloids historically threw supplement after supplement at the market and new, albeit transient, buyers were recruited for the week and regular readers strayed

Legal threats over Guido Fawkes Blog

There’s a very interesting spat happening as I type. I hasten to add I type from the Republic of Ireland and on servers hosted in Ireland (it makes sense if you read on). There is a current injunction against the Sun and Sunday Sun in England and Wales effectively gagging them from reporting that a celebrity husband was involved in a threesome. Fair enough some might say, I’ll stick to the old adage that “three’s a crowd” – but there you have it! The basis of the injunction is that the story, if published, would damage the married couple’s kids

ABC Circulations February 2016

Honest, this is all you get on the Feast Days. And it’s not devotion during the day that’s the distraction, more complete the lack of abstinence! So the brief on this is that some of the tabloids are doing well and the Sun in the morning in particular.