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 down 5.6% and the Sunday market down 6.5%.
The graphic below shows the rate of decline over the past few years and although the decline is slowing or levelling off, it’s still declining at a rate -6.2% per annum which would question the long term viability of newspaper publishing.
| Market | JJ 2016 | JJ 2015 | Diff ‘000 | Diff % |
| Total Sunday | 673,179 | 719,922 | -46,743 | -6.5% |
| Total Morning | 460,910 | 488,203 | -27,293 | -5.6% |
| Total Market* | 1,145,064 | 1,220,403 | -75,339 | -6.2% |
*The Morning Market includes The Herald, the total market also includes the Echo. In the graphic above the total market figure includes the Herald and Echo, the morning market does not include the The Herald as it distorts the historical picture.
