Irish Newspaper Circulation December 2010

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December never brings any real cheer to the Newspaper Business – its a month where minds are on festivities and certainly not on print. This December will also be fondly remembered for the blanket of snow, which probably didn’t help figures in some quarters. The Mail on Sunday is the only paper here to be up on the year and, bar the Independent on Sunday, no paper is up month on month.     

The tabloids seem to suffer the most, both on a month on month basis down nearly 17,000 and year on year down close to 19,000. The Sun took the biggest blow down nearly 7,000 on month on month followed by the Daily Star back over 4,000.

This was also reflected in the Sundays where the red-tops accounted for almost all of the fall of 23,000 in the Sunday market. Ironically the Sunday Star took the biggest fall year on year. One can only speculate if those numbers were the catalyst for the closure announcement earlier this month. The News of the World had a bad month at the office falling 10,000 copies – their biggest month on month fall over the past two years. That’s not any cause for concern yet, but come Feb/March it would be.

Stable mate, The Sunday Times, also was a faller by over 5,000 copies. Add these to falls of The Sun in the morning and the circulation department in News international are shy 267,000 copies across the three titles for December or a hefty €325,000 at the till.

Throw enough promotions/money at the market and some of it will stick – and that’s borne out with the November December figures in the Mail on Sunday.  

The total market is down 41k year on year, not the ideal way to finish the year.

Title Nov-10 Dec-10 Dec-09 M on M Y on Y
Daily Mirror 60,916 58,545 59,857 -2,371 -1,312
Daily Record 686 626 912 -60 -286
Irish Daily Star 89,178 85,034 92,211 -4,144 -7,177
The Sun 83,352 76,523 84,974 -6,829 -8,451
           
Daily Express 2,829 2,676 3,090 -153 -414
Irish Daily Mail 50,489 47,884 48,048 -2,605 -164
           
The Daily Telegraph 2,912 2,844 2,827 -68 17
Financial Times 4,084 3,708 3,801 -376 -93
The Guardian 3,753 3,727 3,962 -26 -235
The Independent 970 921 1,200 -49 -279
The Times 2,354 2,205 2,530 -149 -325
Morning Market 301,523 284,693 303,412 -16,830 -18,719
           
Daily Star – Sunday 47,247 45,083 52,301 -2,164 -7,218
News of the World 124,964 114,262 120,559 -10,702 -6,297
Sunday Mail 1,590 1,489 787 -101 702
Sunday Mirror 35,735 35,867 38,521 132 -2,654
The People 19,461 18,140 21,140 -1,321 -3,000
           
Sunday Express 4,076 3,765 4,165 -311 -400
Sunday Post 736 718 798 -18 -80
The Mail on Sunday 118,507 115,126 113,221 -3,381 1,905
           
Independent on Sunday 1,184 1,359 1,598 175 -239
The Observer 7,683 7,054 8,749 -629 -1,695
The Sunday Telegraph 2,438 1,939 2,467 -499 -528
The Sunday Times 108,455 103,043 106,616 -5,412 -3,573
Sunday  Market 472,076 447,845 470,922 -24,231 -23,077
           
Racing Post 6,439 6,247 7,065 -192 -818
Total Market 773,599 732,538 774,334 -41,061 -41,796