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