ABC Morning Newspaper Circulation July December 2014

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin

Morning newspapers saw a decline of 7.2% over the twelve months dropping to 450,956 for July December 2014. The three tabloids audited contributed close to half of that decline, dropping 16,371 collectively.

The Irish Independent remains the largest selling paper in the morning moving 112,502 copies each day down 4% or 5,000 on July Dec 2014. It has to be noted that in this figure, 86.7% of that is actively purchased compared to 87.2% in July December 2013. Their single copy sales and subs come in at 94,182 compared to 98,568 the comparable period last year, a drop of 4% in that category.

all mkt jd 2014

Publication JD 2014 JD 2013 Diff ‘000 Diff %
Irish Independent 112,502 117,361 -4,859 -4.10%
Irish Times 76,882 82,059 -5,177 -6.30%
Examiner 34,422 37,009 -2,587 -7.00%
         
Daily Mirror 46,625 52,165 -5,540 -10.60%
Irish Daily Star 58,541 64,745 -6,205 -9.60%
The Sun 58,909 63,535 -4,626 -7.30%
Tabloids 164,074 180,445 -16,371 -9.10%
         
Daily Express 2,715 3,057 -342 -11.20%
Irish Daily Mail 45,139 49,814 -4,675 -9.40%
Daily Telegraph 2,728 2,864 -136 -4.80%
Financial Times 2,388 2,545 -157 -6.20%
Guardian 2,724 3,078 -354 -11.50%
The Times 2,382 2,221 161 7.20%
         
Herald   49,512 56,119 -6,607 -11.77%
         
Total  495,468 536,704 -41,236 -7.68%

 

This is still 35,000 copies ahead of its nearest rival The Irish Times with a circulation of 76,882 copies per day, a drop of 6.3% on the previous year or over 5,000 copies. It’s possibly these types of numbers that have prompted the title to launch their much publicised paywall enactment offering this week.

They currently have 2,951 digital subscribers according to their latest cert so it’s a matter of convincing a good few thousand more that they should go behind the paywall. According to some international research about half of one percent of your monthly uniques will take up the digital offering when the paywall is hoisted.

This would translate onto roughly just over 30,000 subscribers for the digital Irish Time – if they follow that international research. In the interest of fairness: within that print figure, 88% are actively purchased not far off market leader the Irish independent on 87%.  

The Examiner dropped 2,500 copies per day and now sites at a six month figure of 34,422 per day.

6mth jd 2014

The tabloids are going to hell in a hand cart and have absolutely nowhere to turn. They’ve lost 9% of their sales and there is no ‘plan b’. The Mirror lost the most in percentage terms at 10% and The Sun and The Star slug it out for top spot in this rapidly declining corner of the market coming in at 58,000 each. The six monthly numbers here are very kind and show The Star just being edged out of pole position by a mere 400 copies. The more recent January ABC’s are a little more stark show them being well beaten into second place by some 1,000 copies per day at this point. It also highlights the rounding that takes place in a six month average figure compared to a monthly comparison.   

In the graphic below, it’s interesting to look at the more recent past of the titles with, finally, a monthly picture. The lines are for many flatter than the 2000-2014 picture.   

mmth jd 2014

At its peak, the Daily Star sold 112,000 copies per day and The Sun 116,000. Currently the three tabloids, combined, only sell just over 164,000 copies a day – a frightening statistic.

The Daily Mail dropped 9% to 45,000 copies per day beating the decline of the overall market and losing nearly 5,000 copies. The rest of the papers are small beer (here anyway) and only contribute 3% to the total market.   

The ‘evening market’ is a lonely slot: I redid the table above to put in the Herald into the morning market so it only leaves the Echo which now stands at 13,111 down 7%. The chart below shows the wisdom of moving into an already crowded market.   

evening mkt