Irish Sun spots ‘cultural differences’

After many decades and perhaps a modicum of soul searching, The (Irish) Sun has decided to abandon Page 3 in this jurisdiction. The reason forwarded is that the editorial staff have just realised that there are “cultural differences” between the papers spiritual home and here. The decision was most likely taken to test the waters. The Sun in the UK and other periodicals have come under sustained pressure of late to cloth the page three lady or even retire her. The pressure is also being heaped on retailers carrying what some deem to be offensive material. Just this week Tesco’s

June ABC’s 2013

Relative to some of the previous months, this hasn’t been too bad, but only on a month on month basis. June saw the start of the Football and Hurling, which may have contributed to a few sales and even the famous Anglo tapes might have helped papers other than the Indo a little as well. The Daily Mirror added a few copies (and a shiny new website – which is worth a look at www.irishmirror.ie) up 700 on the month. The Star lost yet another few bundles down just over 1000 month on month and The Sun wasn’t too far

Anglo tapes in social numbers

It’s been an interesting month for the news media who have been feasting on the sound bites from the Anglo tapes. The Independent uncovered the tapes and gave over a lot, of warranted, space to the tapes. They also showcased their ‘digital first strategy’ – online and then supported via in-depth analysis in the print version/ online version. According to the paper, their website video (a/v) views went from 30,000 in a normal day to an average of 130,000 that week – peaking at 156,000 for the now infamous ‘Deutschland Uber Alles” rendition.

ABC Newspaper Circulations May 2013

One would wonder if the Herald’s shift to the morning is having an effect of the numbers of the tabloids, more specifically the Daily Star. It dropped 1,200 this month and both the Mirror and Sun dropped 1,000. The Daily Mail gained close to 1,000 and the market was down 2,400 on the month and over 20,000 on the year. The Sunday Daily Star still shows the others how many papers you can sell without any marketing/advertising or any Irish News. Any thoughts of the Sun on Sunday bottoming out were dashed – it dropped a further 1,500. The People

ABC Newspaper Circulations April 2013

One paper managed to report a year on year gain – the “I” and that was eight copies other than that everyone else was in the red. Elsewhere there were some serious fallers. In the morning market The Daily Mirror lost 1,800 copies month on month. It can’t be put down to a post Cheltenham as the paper didn’t gain that much from Cheltenham in the first place and the April figure is below that of its sale even for February. Its stable mate, The Sunday Mirror, also lost over 1,000 copies. They are not alone in the tabloid market

American Newspaper Circulations 2013

Today we’re looking at American Newspapers Circulation which were released in the last few days. It’s not a USA centric thing, it’s more that the print sectors march towards digital there is evolving faster (in my opinion) than many of the countries in the world. The Alliance for Audited Media (akin to the ABC here/UK) monitor a total of 593 newspapers across the States and they allow publishers to amalgamate both their paid copy sales and their digital unique or subscriptions so you can see the brand footprint of a title (neatly avoiding the word “newspaper”!).

Rise in Tablet Usage in Ireland

News research from Eircom under the eircom Household Sentiment Survey(eHSS) shows an absolute trend in terms of smartphones and tablets. They estimate that the penetration of Smartphones is currently at 50% of the population, which is slightly at odds with the figures released by ComReg in March. They estimate that there are roughly about 2.3m smartphones connected in ireland, whereas the eHSS have this figure at 1.6 million. The differences could be the base of the population in the eHSS survey (+15?) and that the Com Reg figure is included in part with some tablets with 3G capability. But the

Paywall Announcements

The announcements are coming fast and furious in the print media, or soon to be digital media! Over the past 24 hours The Telegraph announced that it was moving behind a paywall in April and The Sun also chipped in that it too was leaping over as well, but in August, to coincide with the beginning of the Premier League. To be technically correct the Telegraph will sit behind a metered paywall, where it will allow the viewer 20 articles per month free. Unfettered access to their website and app will be £1.99 per week and, for the year,

Combined UK Newspaper Readership

Very interesting figures were released today for UK newspapers, but still have to have some information in them that might be useful to see the direction of the whole industry – from a numeric standpoint as opposed to an emotive one. Their National Readership Survey figures were released today but there surveys are streets ahead of the Irish model as it combines (and has for some time) the readership of a print product and its online product. The print product is surveyed through the historic face-to-face questionnaire method and the online portion is sampled by ComScore. In the latter, demographic

February 2013 ABC’s

This month see a dose of reality in the figures, if not a slightly inflated dose. For the past few months there has been an absence of a comparison for the Sun on Sunday – which had the effect of distorting the market by somewhat overinflating it. However it was February 2012 that the Sun on Sunday first revealed itself with a none too flattering debut of 109,000. It means that February ’13 is the first month where we can compare the Sun to a figure for the previous year. It reveals that the paper has lost over 50,000

Evening Herald rebranding

The rebranding and shifting of times of the Evening Herald, soon to be ‘The Herald’, is an interesting move by IN&M. But moving a paper into an extremely crowded morning market may not seem as risky as it might at first glance. The Evening Herald’s readership profile is firmly rooted in Grater Dublin with close to 90% of their readership in that area. Moving the title to a morning slot means that it will now compete with some of its stable mates, some more than others. It will compete somewhat with the Irish independent although I can’t see too much

Tablet adoption in Ireland

Some of the great theories in economics (and finance) are predicated on caveats that allow the theory to be conclusive, but in reality would not necessarily be the case. Take for example the theory of the Capital Assets Pricing Model (if you haven’t heard of it you can thank yourself lucky). One of the pillars of the original theory is that all “players” in the market share the same information! Yes, indeed. Some of the information below might point to a potential lifesaver for the newspaper industry, but the one thing to keep in mind is a payment model. I

Newspapers ABC Circulation July-Dec 2012

Before we get into each specific market it’s worth looking at the big picture. The market as a whole is down 6% with the morning and evenings falling by 7% in the year. The market has lost 100,000 copy sales in a short twelve month period and you can see from the graphics below that there seems to be no respite in this decline. Although the rate of decline has slowed it’s still a breakneck -6.3% per annum. These are alarming figures and this position hasn’t been reached overnight – it’s been happening since the middle of the last decade.

Sunday Newspapers ABC July-Dec 2012

The Sunday market, at 865,000, is down 6% on the same six months as last year, a drop of 55,000 copies in twelve months. The Sunday Market headline has to be dominated by the 14% decline in circulation of The Sunday World dropping 34,000 to 217,000. While there are, on the surface, grater declines for all the tabloids in the market, that can be easily explained away by the closing of the NoW and the opening of The Sun (Sunday). Granted they are real declines in the order of 40% for those papers but it’s like an explainable ‘act of

Morning Newspapers ABC July-Dec 2012

In the six months to December 2012, the morning market fell by 7% or 39,000 copies per day compared to the same six months in 2111. The biggest faller in percentage terms was the Daily Star dropping 13% or just over 10,000 copies. This is followed by The Sun, down 8% and the Irish Times back 8%. There doesn’t seem to have been any sleight of hand magic in the respective circulation departments as the bulks stayed relatively stable year on year – the Independent maintaining 12% bulks and the Irish Times 8%. Bulks are a very legitimate and, at

Regional Newspapers ABC Circulation July-Dec 2012

The decline in the number of Regional Papers being part of the ABC process is falling at a pace. Two years ago there were nearly 45 papers (paid for) certified by the ABC, now only 24 decide to confess annually or bi-annually. The only papers to record an increase are the Echo in Dublin and the Donegal News Monday edition. Monday edition.. most likely still living off the special edition the Monday after the All Ireland Final in September. I don’t joke, sales up 25% in September for the Monday edition of the News! Elsewhere in the parishes things are

Evening Newspapers ABC June-Dec 2012

Just to cover the whole market, you’d have to look at the Evening market. Although you can hardly call one local paper in Dublin and another in Cork a ‘market’. Anyway… Publication JD 2012 JD 2011 Diff ‘000 Diff % Evening Herald 58,826 62,414 -3,588 -6% Echo 16,560 18,632 -2,072 -11% Total 75,386 81,046 -5,660 -7% I like looking at this from 1990 as it shows the true collapse of the evening newspaper in Ireland. From close to a quarter a million sales every evening to just over 75,000 two decades later.

JNRS 2012

If you wanted to actually see the definition of ‘being at odds with’ then you only have to look at the latest results from the JNRS and see how alien it is to monthly circulation data. Circulation numbers are easy to see in theses many and varied digital outpourings and they paint a fairly consistent monthly picture – a medium (printing on paper) in decline. If the circulation figures paints the reality of daily life where John/Jane Doe pay over their hard earned currency for a newspaper then we know that there are less and less of them –

RTE Web Statistics October 2012

The October RTE web stats dropped in today showing that the broadcaster had a 6% rise in daily traffic over the year although its daily page impressions were down close to two percent- more volume, slightly less engagement. But, on average each person looks at about eight pages per visit. Curiously, their streams were down substantially, with the average daily AV plays dropping 34% in the year. You can do all the theorising you like as to that statistic and not knowing enough behind the core stats, I’m not going to attempt even an educated guess. The really interesting

January 2013 ABC Newspaper Circulation

Just because the month on month figures are devoid of their now customary minuses, it doesn’t mean things are getting better – is simply because January is being compared to a very slow December. You only have to glance at the Year on Year column to see the real picture. All the tabloids bounced back after the festivities and all kept their relative positions. The Daily Mail got a lift of close to 1,000 and the morning market is 6,000 for the better month on month but 18,000 down year on year. In the Sunday bundle the Daily Star fell

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