Day: 18 February 2010

At a point where there are two non-competing papers in a ‘market’ – it’s difficult to describe such a scenario as a ‘Market’ at all.

Publication	July Dec 2008	July Dec 2009	Diff ‘000	Diff %
Evening Herald	79,447	71,187	-8,260	-10%
Echo	25,829	24,192	-1,637	-6%
	0
Total	105,276	95,379	-9,897	-9%

The Evening Market is back nearly 10,000 copies. The Herald fell 10% or 8,200 copies and the Echo down 6% or 1,600 copies.

The Herald tried at least to make an impact in its franchise region, even metaphorically slipping under the covers with Leinster Rugby. While the rugby teams had a stellar year in 2009 the same could not be said for the Evening newspaper.  The paper is the ‘Official Media Partner’ to Leinster Rugby and that means …. no one really knows.

One thing we do know, this ‘market’ is a busted flush at this point.

If the market was an “honourable” samurai general, it would have committed Harakiri at this point, knowing that to continue would be futile.

This is not K2 in profile:

With “Ole’s”, saved penalties and hangovers all round, the market was worth 230,000 copies per evening in 1990.  The dip in 1995 is the demise of the Evening Press. The total market now is the same number of copies the the Evening Press alone sold in 1990.  

The Morning Market is down 7% or 47,000 copies.

The Daily Mail is the biggest sufferer down nearly 10,000 copies to 49,000 which is 17% over the 12 months under scrutiny. Given the spend on advertising/promotions for the Daily that has to be a bit of an eye opener in Ballsbridge.

The Irish Times took a hit of 7% and 8,500 copies. Like the Mail this has to alert the powers that be (in waiting at this point) in Tara St. Geographically they lost 10,000 copies in the Republic but luckily managed to gain in the North and ‘Other’ (UK and Europe) to get a net effect of –8,500. You can go back to 1990 and you wont find a year on year decrease of that magnitude. Mirroring somewhat the path of the Sunday Business Post, their second last month on month large decrease was in 2002, again in our last recession.   

Not wanting to be upstaged, it’s morning rival also made a bit of history too dipping into the par 150,000 region for the first time – not even the near 14% bulks in the figures could keep them over 150k mark.  In order to be directly comparative: the Irish Independent lost the 4,000 in the Republic managing to keep their sales in the North and further afield.       

Next is The Sun which is down 8,000 copies. Their body blow came late in the year when they were de-listed by the paper friendly bunch at Dunnes. The purchases forgone at supermarket chain we lost forever with Dunnes shoppers either substituting (not too much it would seem) or forgoing the purchase altogether. 

The rival tabloid the Daily Star dipped below the 100,000 mark and lost 7,300 copies in the period.

Its been a bad year for the mornings dropping 7%.

Whatever one can speculate about ‘recovery’ and other positive sentiments, the morning newspaper market will never recover. It may, just may, manage to slow its decline, but it will never regain those sales.     

Publication	July Dec 2008	July Dec 2009	Diff ‘000	Diff %
Irish Independent	154,610	149,906	-4,704	-3%
Irish Times	115,462	106,926	-8,536	-7%
Examiner	52,544	49,096	-3,448	-7%
Irish Daily Star	105,031	97,647	-7,384	-7%
Daily Mirror	64,427	62,974	-1,453	-2%
The Sun	99,646	91,453	-8,194	-8%
Daily Express	3,361	3,371	10	0%
Daily Telegraph	3,479	3,013	-466	-13%
Financial Times	4,768	3,756	-1,012	-21%
Guardian	4,744	4,176	-568	-12%
The Independent	2,201	1,279	-922	-42%
The Times	3,439	2,762	-677	-20%
Daily Mail	58,988	49,052	-9,936	-17%
Total	672,700	625,410	-47,290	-7%

Looking at the biggest market, the Sunday, it managed to fair a little better that the mornings or evenings. 

The market is down 47,000 year on year or 4% and to put that in cash terms, €2.5m at the till.  

It could be reasonably argued that a 4% decline in the year that was is not too shabby.

On a positive point the Sunday Mirror gained 500 copies year on year and the Sunday Times had a fantastic run adding 4,000 copies. Given their recent woes with Dunnes it a good result.    

The biggest faller in percentage terms is the Mail on Sunday and ironically possibly one of the more active papers in marketing terms. 

The biggest faller in copy terms is the Sunday World loosing nearly 15,000 copies. In their defence they are still the largest selling paper in the jurisdiction and, if were where to open a Pandora’s Box, they are by far the most ‘actively purchased’ paper. There may only be 2,300 between them and the Sunday Independent but if you look beyond the topline figure the actively purchased (stripping our bulks) distance is nearly 22,000 in the World’s favour.

The buying patterns of the Sunday Market is changing irrevocably. Whereas the Daily is (in the main) a one paper purchase, the Sunday market has always been, to a greater extent a multiple purchase. The days of buying two or three papers could well be back to one single paper.

The papers in the market have tried everything and have spent substantial marketing budgets on books, CD’s, posters, free meals and magazines, one off or sporadic ones.

This may have actually prevented a greater haemorrhage than you see here below. 

The tabloids still make up 45% of the market compared to 40% for the morning market. 

Without pointing fingers: The Sunday Business Post had its biggest year on year (6 months to a comparable 6 months) drop since 2002 – a point when we were last in ‘recession’. So does history repeat itself? 

Publication	July Dec 2008	July Dec 2009	Diff ‘000	Diff %
Sunday Independent	270,362	268,140	-2,222	-1%
Sunday World	285,214	270,453	-14,761	-5%
Sunday Tribune	66,672	65,727	-945	-1%
Sunday Business Post	54,993	52,271	-2,722	-5%
IoS/Daily Mail	125,420	112,710	-12,710	-10%
Daily Star Sunday	59,898	57,679	-2,219	-4%
Irish News of the World	139,321	132,425	-6,896	-5%
Irish Sunday Mirror	38,976	39,652	676	2%
The People	26,847	21,979	-4,868	-18%
Sunday Times	109,999	114,074	4,075	4%
Sunday Express	5,115	4,600	-515	-10%
Independent.on Sunday	2,870	1,736	-1,135	-40%
The Observer	11,574	9,340	-2,234	-19%
Sunday Telegraph	3,095	2,595	-500	-16%
Total	1,200,356	1,153,381	-46,976	-4%

A picture paints …..

This is each half year since 2000. Like for like sales (that’s excluding Sunday Daily Star and Mail on Sunday figures) the Sunday Market is back a massive 176,000 copies.

The figure for the last six months of the decades were released today and, non surprises.

Overall the total market is down 5% in comparison to July – December 2008, or to put it more starkly, down over 100,000 copies. The main percentage hit came form the morning market back 7% or nearly 50,000. Likewise for the Sunday’s  but in percentage terms they are down 4%. The Evenings, even at a low base are down 7% as well.