Remarkably, there’s now no ‘solid’ (in my eyes) metric for the best selling Irish Morning Newspaper. Having suddenly jettisoned their ABC certification, we can now only rely on the JNRS and perhaps some web metrics, when and if they appear, for some solid ‘market’ data on the Irish Independent. My views on the JNRS are easy to find here and my apathy towards them is not veiled.
I’m sure that across Europe most of the ‘best selling’ morning papers in each country have an audited sales figure (I might revisit that later) and an audited figure is expected by their clients. We can only wait and see what the view in the market will be and how it actually resonates with advertisers.
We’ll move away from this for the moment and look at those that did produce a figure.
Sunday Market:
The Sunday Independent is down 8.6% to 201,000. The magic of 94% actively purchasing their title and 6% multiple copy sales keeps them up above the 200,000 plateau this time out. The Sunday World fell sharper, down 10% to 178,000 and there’s no corrective surgery on the number with 100% actively purchased. The Sunday Business Post did better than the market with a 4.5% drop to 32,000 and a marginal increase in multiple copy sales.
The Tabloids are down below the market drop with the Daily Star Sunday dropping 19%, but as they make little or no effort in the Irish Market, this is to be expected. The Sun on Sunday, although falling, is doing ‘better’ than the market as a whole only dropping 4%. On the other hand the Sunday Mirror dropped 14% over the year to 30,000. I think The People have given up and are back 18% in the year.
The Mail on Sunday shows a decrease of 9,000 or 10%, but their circulation is volatile on the back of multiple copy sales and promotions.
Table: Sunday ABC Circulation 2015 Jan-June
Publication | JJ 2015 | JJ 2014 | Diff ‘000 | Diff % |
Sunday Independent | 201,622 | 220,565 | -18,943 | -9% |
Sunday World | 178,867 | 198,260 | -19,393 | -10% |
Sunday Business Post | 32,498 | 34,012 | -1,514 | -4% |
Daily Star Sunday | 16,138 | 19,877 | -3,739 | -19% |
The Sun (Sunday) | 53,047 | 55,417 | -2,370 | -4% |
Irish Sunday Mirror | 30,586 | 35,467 | -4,881 | -14% |
The People | 11,340 | 13,759 | -2,419 | -18% |
(Total Tabloid) | 289,978 | 322,780 | -32,802 | -10% |
Sunday Express | 3,165 | 3,486 | -321 | -9% |
Mail on Sunday | 90,399 | 100,082 | -9,683 | -10% |
Independent.on Sunday | ||||
The Observer | 4,860 | 5,319 | -459 | -9% |
Sunday Telegraph | 2,274 | 2,528 | -254 | -10% |
Sunday Times | 82,748 | 91,841 | -9,093 | -10% |
Total Sunday | 707,544 | 780,613 | -73,069 | -9% |
The Sunday Times is also back 10% to 82,000. It has to be remembered that during the year they had a price increase from €2:80 to €3:00 which, although still the right side of a bad price point, may have had a negative effect on sales. The price increase, in overall revenue terms, is marginally working in their favor at this point by about 3% I’d estimate.
The rest of the papers are small in number and have little impact on the market.
The Sunday market is down 9.4% on the year and the more alarming metric would be the rate of change graph below which shows a reversal for fortunes.
Graphics: Sunday Market
Morning Market
The Irish Independent deemed it appropriate to abandon the (once?) staple metric of newspaper publishing. It’s their dime but, I wouldn’t agree with it. It’s been replaced with…….silence.
The Irish Times is down 5% to 76,194 dropping below the eighty mark but is still marginally better than the market rebased figures without the Irish Independent, which showed a 6% fall. Their actively purchased dropped over the year from 89% to 88%.
The Examiner too is back 5% to 33,000 and they have an insignificant number of bulks and multiple copy sales.
Like the Sunday Market the Tabloids suffered more that the morning market. Collectively they are down 8% with The Daily Mirror dropping 14% to 43,000. The Sun and Daily Star are down 5% each with The Sun marginally ahead of The Star.
The Daily Mail is doing better than the market down 1% and, again, the other papers are small in terms of numbers.
Table: Morning Market Sales 2015 Jan-June
Publication | JJ 2015 | JJ 2014 | Diff ‘000 | Diff % |
Irish Independent | n/a | 112,383 | -112,383 | |
Irish Times | 76,194 | 80,332 | -4,138 | -5.2% |
Examiner | 33,198 | 35,026 | -1,828 | -5.2% |
Daily Mirror | 43,250 | 50,263 | -7,013 | -14.0% |
Irish Daily Star | 57,658 | 60,998 | -3,340 | -5.5% |
The Sun | 57,702 | 60,711 | -3,009 | -5.0% |
Tabloids | 158,610 | 171,972 | -13,362 | -7.8% |
Daily Express | 2,588 | 2,785 | -197 | -7.1% |
Irish Daily Mail | 49,876 | 50,503 | -627 | -1.2% |
Daily Telegraph | 2,612 | 2,726 | -114 | -4.2% |
Financial Times | 2,371 | 2,462 | -91 | -3.7% |
Guardian | 2,561 | 2,792 | -231 | -8.3% |
The Times | 2,348 | 2,182 | 166 | 7.6% |
Total | 330,358 | 463,163 | ||
Ex Independent | 330,358 | 350,780 | -20,422 | -5.8% |
I’ll have to revisit the graphics as I’ll have to rebase some of them in the absence of the Indo!
Graphics: Morning Market