JNRS Irish Newspaper Readership 2014

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 The JNRS Irish newspaper research was released yesterday – without the fanfare that used to be associated with its unveiling some years back. But then it’s only fair to say that some years back some publishers we possibly seeing a growth on their readership year on year. 

Since the survey of 2012/3 the readership has been divided between readership of the print edition and a newsbrands digital offering, if they have one. The results are in the tables below and just a few items to point out as I’m not about to glaze over deciphering every nuance in the survey. But I’ll simply go through a few points and leave the speculation for others.

In the tables the comparative survey is the 2012/3. I didn’t put in those actual figures because it looked very overwhelming, but I did put in the differences under “Change on 2012/3”.

The survey says that only four titles made gains in their print readership: Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, The Irish Sun and the Irish Farmers Journal. Udder than that ever paper in the survey experienced a drop in print readership.
Every brand increased their digital footprint bar the Sunday Times – but there’s a paywall there now in place (which was there for the full 2012/3 survey) – and the Sunday Business Post which fell marginally.

Even with the rapid increase in the digital side of the coin, it still didn’t save the necks of twelve titles whose combined digital and print readership still fell year on year.

  Readership 2013/4 Print and Digital   Change on 2012/3
  P+D P+D P ‘000 P% D ’000 D %   P+D P+D P ‘000 P% D ’000 D %
Any Newspaper 3008 83.7% 2872 80.0% 565 15.7%   9 0% -23 -1% 115 26%
Any Daily 2182 60.7% 1952 54.3% 471 13.1%   -46 -2% -117 -6% 115 32%
Any Sunday 2137 59.5% 2077 57.8% 153 4.3%   -31 -1% -49 -2% 13 9%
                           
Daily Titles                          
Irish Independent 691 19.2% 571 15.9% 174 4.8%   42 6% 1 0% 55 46%
The Irish Times 388 10.8% 301 8.4% 136 3.8%   -2 -1% -36 -11% 30 28%
Irish Examiner 223 6.2% 200 5.6% 28 0.8%   -1 0% -11 -5% 8 40%
Irish Daily Star 310 8.6% 303 8.4% 9 0.3%   -81 -21% -84 -22% 1 13%
Irish Daily Mirror 226 6.3% 216 6.0% 18 0.5%   -48 -18% -53 -20% 9 100%
Irish Sun (Mon-Sat) 329 9.2% 321 8.9% 16 0.4%   -15 -4% -16 -5% 2 14%
Irish Daily Mail 227 6.3% 187 5.2% 49 1.4%   -3 -1% -19 -9% 18 58%
The Herald 262 7.3% 259 7.2% 4 0.1%   -53 -17% -49 -16% -6 -60%
                           
Sunday Titles                          
Sunday Independent 992 27.6% 941 26.2% 87 2.4%   54 6% 38 4% 16 23%
Sunday World 749 20.9% 740 20.6% 18 0.5%   -36 -5% -40 -5% 6 50%
Sunday Business Post 118 3.3% 107 3.0% 13 0.3%   -29 -20% -33 -24% -1 -7%
The Sunday Times 407 11.3% 387 10.8% 37 1.0%   -2 0% -1 0% -13 -26%
Irish Sunday Mirror 169 4.7% 164 4.6% 8 0.2%   -12 -7% -16 -9% 5 167%
Irish Mail on Sunday 340 9.5% 329 9.2% 16 0.5%   -14 -4% -22 -6% 5 45%
Irish Sun (Sunday Edition) 275 7.7% 272 7.6% 9 0.2%   24 10% 23 9% 0 0%
                           
Weekly Newspapers                          
Irish Farmers Journal 287 8.0% 285 7.9% 2 0.1%   52 22% 51 22% -3 -60%
Any M.Force/RNAI 1336 37.2% 1318 36.7% 41 1.2%              

 Some highlights:  

Publication Print Readers   Publication Print Readers
Sunday Business Post -24%   Irish Farmers Journal 22%
Irish Daily Star -22%   Irish Sun (Sunday) 10%
Irish Daily Mirror -20%   Sunday Independent 6%
The Herald -16%   Irish Independent 6%
The Irish Times -11%   The Sunday Times 0%
  Digital increase     Digital Decrease
Irish Sunday Mirror 167%   Irish Farmers Journal -60%
Irish Daily Mirror 100%   The Herald -60%
Irish Daily Mail 58%   The Sunday Times -26%
Sunday World 50%   Sunday Business Post -7%

To me there still a lot to stomach in this survey. Your gut would tell you that the market really isn’t that stable over they years. Look at the graphs below, it’s the print readership portion of the survey plotted over the past few surveys – to me, its ambitious at best.

morning readeship

sunday reader

And finally, just as the data is available – here where the papers size up demographically

sunday x y

morning x y

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