Irish Newspaper Circulation December 2011

If only we were discussing the six monthly figures, all of them. But we’re not because some of the papers will not be filing their six monthly figures until 16^th February 2012. So, on that date, you can finally find out what the Irish Independent, Irish Times etc sold in July of last year. Breakneck pace.

For those who did provide the timely information required it’s grim reading. Month on month the big fallers in the Morning were the tabloids losing close to 6,000 copies collectively. The Sun now lies perilously to the 70,000 mark, which, if it tips over the edge, would not be good for either image or marketing.

Looking at the longer term the morning market year on year is back just shy of 17,000 copies, the Daily Star making up more than half of that loss.  

Turning to the Sundays. It must be very disconcerting for the principals of the Daily Star on Sunday to see that the ‘UK’ edition that replaced the Irish Edition when it closed is only 15,000 copies off the Irish editions circulation figure.  

The Sunday Mirror and the People are down nearly 3,000 each but are still way ahead of last year’s figure due to the closure of the News of the World. The Mirror seems to be doing a good job in retaining the readers it got from that closure so far and it will be interesting to see what they retain after the Christmas break.   

Mail on Sunday is down 4,000 month on month and over 8,000 on the year. The Sunday Times was the biggest faller this month dropping 5,000 copies month on month but still 2,000 on the year.

The ‘big’ figure is that the total market fell 22,000 copies on the month (it fell 41,000 November to December 2010) and its down a stunning 120,000 year on year (36,000 last year on 2009).