Irish Newspaper Circulations February 2011

February saw the introduction of “i”, the free stalemate of the London Independent. Now, should it be named “i-spy”. Having made the decision to print an edition in the north and ship it across the border every night you would think that it would be a little easier to find. Copies are like hens teeth! If you’re looking for ‘Irish News’ it’s not going to be between the covers there. But, if you wanted to perhaps supplement your daily read, you couldn’t fault it.  

Looking at the month on month firstly.  Taking into consideration that the comparative is January – the real looser (aside for the now closed Daily Star on Sunday) is the News of The World dropping over 4,000 in the month. The two morning tabloids Star and Sun also saw a decline of two to three thousand. The only papers that kept the gloss on the numbers were the Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday, both increases promotionally driven (not that there’s anything wrong with that).     

Year on year continues the downward spiral. Again ignoring the Star on Sunday, the News of the World takes pole position in the negative territory down close to 12,000 year on year. New journalists, ex-premiers lurking in fridges doesn’t seem to be able to halt the decline. The Sunday People have, at this point, firmly established themselves in the teens. The Mirror and Sunday Mirror have a secret formula somewhere that the rest of the publishers would gladly covet. Maybe they have a bundle of papers in the attic growing older/getting smaller.

The figures were being worked on – so there is no point in hiding them. Below are the cover prices, annual turnover and the papers’ rank in their respective markets. The figures used their current sales and cover price. The price used is the weekday price, as a number of papers have a higher price for their weekend edition. The figures are the retail value of each publication, Its not what the publication gets into it’s pocket as there are a good few mouths to feed – VAT, retailers margin and the wholesaler all take a slice.

The numbers are fairly impressive. At the till, the morning papers have a gross turnover of €276m and the Sunday papers €117m.  Whilst we expect big sums from  the major players, its the smaller circulating publications that raise an eyebrow. The FT for example falls back on it reputation as the financial paper, markets itself very little here (if at all) and still managers to take €2.6m annually.