April 2019 ABC circulation figures were released. The trend remains the same with very little by way of anomalies. The bulks have remained off the majority of News UK title, bat the Sunday Times which is carrying roughly 3,000 bulks. The Sun and Sun on Sunday remain fat-free for the second month. The Daily Star dropped 2,500 on the month but that was mainly due to an increase in sales in March due to Cheltenham.
Another day in paradise! The March ABC’s were released today and within them are a few fundamental changes. It looks as if News UK have had a change of heart/policy and all but canned their use of bulks across all their titles which is reflected by their ‘drop’ in circulation below. The Sun retained 300 against 2,500, The Sun on Sunday abandoned them completely as opposed to carrying 2,500 in the past. The Times (IRE
The February ABC is released. The morning market is continuing its trend of a year on year decline of 10% and no sign of any floor being hit or a slowing in this decline. The Tabloids are down 3% on the month bar the Daily Star which managed to hand on to its numbers from last month. in the Sundays, the monthly fall is the same as the daily at -3%. The year is down
The latest ‘Island of Ireland’ report was released today and, if nothing else, it outlines the continuing decline of newspaper circulation in Ireland. The report compares newspaper sales for the last six months of 2018 to the same period in 2017. Looking at the overall figure first, it shows that year on year, newspaper sales have declined by 10% in the twelve months. The Sunday market fell by -9.3% and the morning market by -10.1%.
The first ABC of 2019 was released earlier. Many of the papers with a monthly ABC saw a bounce in comparison to December, a notoriously slow month in the first place. However, in comparison to their sales the previous January, they are all well off the mark. The Daily Star had a bad month, dropping 1,500 on the month and those sales would seem to have gone to The Sun whose circulation is up 1,700
It’s the final ABC of 2018 and allow as us to access how the last half of the year have fared for the print brands. December is down 2% on the month and 10% on December 2018 with the morning market doing marginally better than the Sunday. The tabloids had a decent month with most of them opting to exclude their sales from 24th to 28th – which is perfectly legitimate. We have to wait
November ABC’s are available and there’s little to report. The market stayed level month on month and 9% down on the year. While the morning market was dawn 2% the Sunday market stayed steady mainly down to a 4% increase in circulation for the Sunday Times and that was keeping bulks at the same level as last month
October ABC’s were released earlier and there are no real surprises. The morning tabloids took a 3% hit on the month but the Sunday tabloids had a decent month. The Mail on Sunday gained 7% or 4,000 copies on the month. The people also managed to add 7% albeit 500 copies. Beneath all the numbers is the worrying underlying trend of the year on year difference. For the past five monthly sets of figures, the
It’s a pattern that is mirrored nearly year – a boost in August and a drift back to normality in September when the gloss has gone off the first few weeks of the soccer season. The morning market was down -4% this month back from a +4% increase in September. The composition, in this analysis, of the morning market is dominated by the tabloids, the cohort most susceptible to the goings on in the Premier
August brought some much needed good news to the beleaguered newspaper market – a month on month increase in sales and the last time that occurred was August ’17. That’s actually no coincidence as August has always been kind to publishers. This August there was a bevy of large events: the two All Ireland finals took place, whereas they were normally played in September. We had the Papal visit, but I suspect that was more
The ABC’s for the first half of 2018 were released earlier today. It shows that the newspaper market had contracted by a further 7.1% over the year. The market annual rate of decline hasn’t been below -6% since 2009 and that’s a statistic that doesn’t need further commentary. The Morning market was down slightly more than the Sunday. The stark reality for the industry is that newspaper circulation has halved over the past decade alone.
July ABC arrived today. A bad month for News UK where all of their titles (bar one) made the ‘top fallers’ list. The Sun on Sunday dropped 1,900, The Sun fell 1,400 and the Sunday Times lost 1,200. Each one of those titles carry and element of ‘bulks’ but their top line figures were not effected through any adjustment of their bulks as they remained the same as last month. However, perhaps they were testing
Title Aug-18 Jun-18 Aug-17 M/M Y/Y % M/M % Y/Y Daily Mirror 30,219 29,054 33,559 1,165 -3,340 4% -10% Daily Record 307 302 355 5 -48 2% -14% Irish Daily Star 46,559 44,425 51,482 2,134 -4,923 5% -10% The Sun 54,303 53,441 58,459 862 -4,156 2% -7% Tabloids 131,388 127,222 143,855 4,166 -12,467 3% -9% Daily Express 2,443 2,384 2,558 59 -115 2% -4% Irish Daily Mail 32,068 30,200 41,526 1,868 -9,458 6% -23%
June ABC’s the halfway point and the beginning of the Jan-June ‘Island of Ireland figures for the majority of publications audited b the ABC. Thirty-five days from now the rest of the bunch will publish their numbers. The Sun dropped over 1,000 copies month on month with the Daily Star adding 500 copies over the month. The morning market was back 1% or 1,500 over the month. You can see from the chart below the
The May ABC indicates that it wasn’t the best month for the tabloids with an accumulated drop of nearly 5,000 copies – the Daily Star taking the brunt of that fall dropping 2,200 over the month. The Sun fell by 1,700 and the Mirror lost a paltry 900 copies in relative terms. The Irish Daily Mail lost 2,000 month on month (or 6%) however its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday, added 700 copies over
April brought the tail end of the Easter Holidays which is sometimes a disruptive period for newspapers. However, it does not seem to have had an adverse effect on sales of The Sun which is showing a 3% increase month on month. Conversely, the Daily Star had a bad month dropping 2,300 copies or 5% on the month. This is marginally eclipsed by the fall in sales of the Sunday Times, which dropped 4,000 copies
Very little by way of change this month. The month was kind to the tabloids, particularly the Daily Star which saw its numbers increase by 2,000 on the month. It just shows you the attraction that the sport of kings has on its core readership – it’s no coincidence that a decent month for the paper coincides with the Cheltenham Festival. Having said that, maybe the steam is running out on that guaranteed circulation lift
The weather at the latter part of February possibly had a small adverse effect on a few of the numbers for February 2018. While the papers published (there are no exceptions in the certs) it’s impossible to know how many retail outlets the managed to get to. Interestingly the Sun and The Times were big faller’s month on month (-1770 and -2770 respectively) along with the Sunday Mirror (-2870). Conversely the Sundays had a decent
We have thirteen National titles available for selection every morning and twelve to choose from every Sunday. The figures here are the circulations of national newspapers for the period of July to December 2017 and are compared to the same six months in 2016. The stark reality is that in the intervening period, the newspapers below sold ten million fewer copies per annum in comparison to the previous year. Interestingly five years ago five titles
The first audit of 2018 appeared earlier. Oddly there were a few surprises in a fairly predictable market. Month on month the Sunday Mirror managed to add 3,000 copies to its tally and the Sunday Times managed a 1,600 increase without any trickery in the bulks department. The Sun added 1,400 on the month and again maintaining the same bulk level as last month. Conversely, the Mail on Sunday ‘dropped’ 5,200 on December. This doesn’t
