Day: 20 February 2014

The Sunday Market, like the morning, dropped 6% year on year, down 54,000 to 811,000. Unlike the morning market where there was a somewhat consistency to the declines the papers in the Sunday Market had very mixed fortunes. If falling circulation still manages to get you the title of ‘best performer’, then the Sunday Independent deserves that accolade. It only dropped 3% year on year and all other titles in the market declined by greater percentages.

I’m of the opinion that the Sunday Market is a peculiar creature and some papers will fair ‘better’ than others because of this. The days of the multiple purchases on a Sunday are slowing if not gone altogether and it’s the papers that are held nearest and dearest that will survive the cull (or the “Sunday Slaughter” were you on the back bench of a tabloid).

It would be an interesting statistic, if one existed, to see the number of individuals who still purchase one or more papers on a Sunday, who are still active in the market, as distinct to the numbers of papers purchased on a Sunday which we have here.

It looks as if, for this year anyway, The Sunday Independent is not being jettisoned from the Sabbath shopping basket, but other titles are in its favour. Likewise for the Sunday World which outperformed a falling market managing a 4% drop (-8,860) to 208,000. The toing and froing that existed between the two titles, where there might be a thousand copies between them ever six months, looks like its long gone with the Indo out in front by 21,000 copies at this point.

The People and The Daily Star on Sunday are showing 14% declines year on year, but neither make a big effort in the market anyway bar the odd tricolour every now and then and perhaps the obligatory shamrock next month.

The Sunday Business Post made headlines for different reasons last year (and this) and will make them again falling 13% year on year down to 34,000.

The tabloids, like in the morning market, suffered the most over the year, down 7% if you include the Sunday World or 11% if you don’t. The tabloids (inc. SW) make up 42% of the Sunday Market down from nearly 50% in 2000 and in comparison to the morning market, where they constitute 38% of the market, it shows a leaning towards a tabloid on a Sunday.

The Mail on Sunday is down 7% on the year and the Sunday Times down 8% to 92,643 from 100,720.  

Not to put too fine a point on it: the Sunday market is down 6% year on year and 32% in the past five years.    

Morning Market: The first point of reference is that the morning market has fallen below 500k for the first time and, as can see from the various charts accompanying the post, there is no sign of any reversal of fortunes.

The big fallers year on year are the Red Tops who collectively are down 8%. The Sun and The Daily Star slug it out for worst performers in the Morning market title, watched on closely by the Daily Mirror. In the six month average both The Sun and The Star managed to stay above 60,000, but recent fortunes in the monthly circulations have shown that both papers come perilously close to going under that figure.  

In these figures it should be remembered that the Evening Herald is a regular feature of the morning newspaper selection and has been since March 2013. The addition of a newspaper into an already crowded space will have an impact somewhere. (I’ve not included them in the mornings as I’d have to redo a lot!)

But sometimes numbers are more psychology than anything else. The powers that be in the Independent probably won’t be ecstatic to have fallen below that safe psychological threshold of 120,000, down 5% (-6,620) on the year to 117,361. And, like last year there is also 13% fat in that figure as only 102,000 are at basic cover price, the rest are below that and an bulks.

The Irish Times have to put up with a 7% (-6,297) decline in fortunes to 82,000. For the first year the Irish Times audit also covered their ‘digital edition’ which came in at 2,887 subscribers and, effectively, gives them a brand footprint of just shy of 85,000. It’s at least some information on their digital offering and none of the other papers provided a similar figure for comparison.

The Examiner lost 6% (2,546) on the year and The Daily Mail managed to hang on to what they had last year. The other papers are small in number and not really that much of an influence on the market. And just because they won’t produce a monthly figure doesn’t mean we can’t show the month on month progress of all the papers!