Day: 12 March 2010

Comparing month on month is a bit of ‘smoke and mirrors’. January is such a dead month for newspaper sales, using it can be a poor comparison. Since we are in February – we have no choice.

Taking that into account, there were some positives. The Sun bounced back with an extra 2,300 copies on the previous month and seemingly not at the expense of any of the other tabloids. Other than that, the status quo was maintained in the mornings.

The Mail on Sunday had a great month adding over 4,000 and the News of the World added a similar figure. Would the publicity surrounding Mr Paul Williams and his departure from the Sunday World to the News of the World have had an effect on that number?

The fallers were the Daily Star, The People and The Sunday Times.

Title	Jan	Feb	Diff
Daily Mirror	59,378	59,293	-85
Daily Record	872	893	21
Irish Daily Star	94,957	95,111	154
The Sun	84,549	86,872	2,323
Daily Express	3,077	2,988	-89
Irish Daily Mail	52,843	53,235	392
The Daily Telegraph	2,896	2,775	-121
Financial Times	3,487	3,784	297
The Guardian	3,983	3,862	-121
The Independent	1,195	1,088	-107
The Times	2,478	2,492	14
Morning Market	309,715	312,393	2,678
The Mail on Sunday	112,011	116,102	4,091
Daily Star – Sunday	56,570	54,611	-1,959
News of the World	126,482	129,921	3,439
Sunday Mail	2,633	1,670	-963
Sunday Mirror	36,974	36,752	-222
The People	21,798	20,374	-1,424
The Sunday Times	115,118	113,963	-1,155
Sunday Express	3,928	4,016	88
Sunday Post	795	811	16
Independent on Sunday	1,858	1,502	-356
The Observer	8,847	8,608	-239
The Sunday Telegraph	2,511	2416	-95
Racing Post	5,990	6,726	736
Sunday Market	383,504	381,370	-2,134
Total Market	693,219	693,763	544

The Market year on year is the real story where the Mornings are back nearly 30,000 with The Sun and Daily Star with the biggest declines of nine and eight thousand respectively.

The Sundays, year on year, declined by nearly 36,000 with the News of the World, The People, Mirror and Star on Sunday showing the biggest losses – basically the tabloid market.

The only paper to show a monthly year on year increase was the Mail On Sunday up 2,600. 

Top Five Declines	Y on Y
The Sun	-9,291
Irish Daily Star	-8,570
News of the World	-5,631
The People	-5,589
Sunday Mirror	-5,023

Every month, circulation falls by another small amount, but it’s only when you make a direct comparison to the previous year that one really sees the levels of decline. The market as a whole down 74,000 year on year. Sundays down 45,000 and the morning back 37,000.  

In the mornings the Irish Daily Mail had a bad month down nearly 4,000 copies. It’s Sunday title also experienced a month on Month drop of 4,600. the buying public can the so fickle giving up on a publication when the promotions run out. 

The tabloids should have had a much better month in March with the Cheltenham festival. Last March the tabloids were up over 3,000 in their February figure. This year they are back 300 copies collectively.

The tabloids historically have seen Cheltenham as one of the ‘bankers’ in their circulation year. Promotions are everywhere: fantasy racing, daily supplements, DVD’s, colour magazines and celebrity writers are all thrown at the market.

Historically all with a positive effect, but the rules may have been re-written this year.       

The Sunday market is where a bit of the action was supposed to be in March. There was pots of ink used in January/February over the defection of Paul Williams to the News of The World. Worried bosses in Talbot Street quickly assembled the briefs and marched to the Golden Arches to prevent their star pupil leaving for their nearest rival. 

Perhaps, on hindsight, they could have saves a few euros on that exercise. The Journalist was at his new desk in early march and for that first month the News of the World managed to lift circulation by 998 copies in the month.

There was a feeling that the defection would hurt the Sunday World’s circulation – which they alluded to in their High Court Affidavit. It was also felt that the News of the World circulation would benefit greatly – which doesn’t seem to be that case.

They put on copies, but probably not in numbers they expected hiring a journalist for a reported €250,000. Just to cover that cost they would want to be looking at adding about 6,000 copies a week to their figure (that’s a crude estimate, but it would be near that figure).

No doubt Paul will get the scoops he’s noted for in the coming months, but the expected sales certainly didn’t materialise in March.

Only 143 copies to go for The People…