ABC Jan June 2013 Morning Newspapers

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The morning market figures show declines across the board but in varying degrees. The total market is down 7%, or a few copies shy of 40,000 in comparison to the same six months in 2013.

The biggest faller was The Daily Star which lost 11% (8,500) of its circulation. The Financial Times also lost 13% but it’s coming from a very low base in the first place. In the other tabloids   The Sun fell 10% and The Mirror 5%

The tabloids have very much suffered at the hands of the recession. Collectively, they are down about 40% compared to their combined circulation in 2005 whereas the non-tabloids in the market are down about 17% over the same period.

Morning formats

Granted, it’s a sharp decline for both formats but the red-tops are falling at a much steeper rate. The tabloid share of the morning market has also fallen from 44% in 2005 to 38% in 2013 so they are losing both share and circulation at the same time.

Publication JJ 2013 JJ 2012 Diff ‘000 Diff %
Irish Independent 121,120 125,986 -4,866 -4%
Irish Times 84,201 92,565 -8,364 -9%
Examiner 37,897 40,245 -2,348 -6%
Daily Mirror 54,550 57,445 -2,895 -5%
Irish Daily Star 66,773 75,315 -8,542 -11%
The Sun 65,263 72,499 -7,236 -10%
Daily Express 2,814 2,884 -70 -2%
Irish Daily Mail 51,675 51,841 -166 0%
Daily Telegraph 2,867 2,893 -26 -1%
Financial Times 2,740 3,161 -421 -13%
Guardian 3,067 3,311 -244 -7%
i 805 0
The Independent 0 897 -897 -100%
The Times 2,101 2,149 -48 -2%
Total  495,873 531,191 -36,123 -7%

 

Ignoring papers not tipping over the 10,000 mark, the Daily Mail only dropped 166 copies over the 12 months. The Irish Independent slipped back 4% to 121,120 and had the same levels of ‘actively purchased’ copies as last year. The audit for the Irish Independent is only on the single compact format as opposed to the dual format (inc Broadsheet) audited the same period last year. Given that it’s one of the smaller declines in the morning market the decision to kill off the broadsheet looks as if it was without the bloodshed some people envisaged.

One of the biggest Irish stories to date was carried in the Irish independent in June – the Anglo tapes. But looking at their monthly data the story did nothing for the sales of the paper in that month. Actually their sales were down just shy of 4,000 copies on the previous month and their actual paid for sales were only 154 copies off 100,000. There is no doubt that the paper got enormous publicity from the tapes – but most of that would have transferred online where the tapes and content were free. 

The Irish Times continued its decline and lost a further 9% in this report dropping to 84,000 and losing over 8,000 in the twelve month period. There will, hopefully, come a point where some of the broadsheets come to understand that they are giving away far too much on-line. Why actually pay for the paper when I can read it free online. Twenty-one weeks of daily newspaper purchase is the equivalent cost of a decent tablet.

morning all