The JNRS survey hit the streets and made for some fairly depressing reading in some quarters. Overall readership of newspapers was down only marginally with the morning titles gaining slightly. Notably it’s the first time that the full figures of the Free newspapers came into the survey.
It shows that, after two and a half years, they have a decent readership in the morning and perhaps a slight issue with loyalty to any particular title which is understandable. The ‘fear and loathing’ that was bellowed from some corners about the erosion of the established titles to the new freshet entrants looks like, on these set of figures, to have been unnecessary. In the Morning market The Mail would seem to have gained at the expense certainly of the Irish Independent and to a lesser extent the Examiner.
The Examiner having a torrid time in these figures, something that is not fully reflected as dramatically in their circulation figures over the same period which has fallen about 5%. However, newspaper circulation figures and newspaper readership results have always been strange bedfellows and I am sure, that like many a newspaper management team in the past faced with the exact same conundrum, The Examiners team will be preparing some rebuttal to these.
The Sundays showed that the readership of the tabloids, mainly The Sunday Mirror and People has dropped – which is reflected to a greater extent in their circulations over the same period (not that we are comparing as they are mutually exclusive!).
The Sunday Tribune lost a chunk of readers most likely to the Mail on Sunday, which would be fighting for some of the Tribunes market. The Regional’s took a knock as did the Farmers Journal. The Guide was down and Image lost 30% of its readership in the past 12 months.
| 2008 | 2007 | |||||
| Universe (000s) | 3526 | 3483 | ||||
| AIR – Any newspaper | 3050 | 86.5% | 3079 | 87.3% | ||
| Morning Titles | ||||||
| Irish Independent | 520 | 14.7% | 570 | 16.4% | -50 | |
| The Irish Times | 317 | 9.0% | 325 | 9.3% | -8 | |
| Irish Examiner | 202 | 5.7% | 267 | 7.7% | -65 | |
| Irish Daily Star | 482 | 13.7% | 441 | 12.7% | 41 | |
| Irish Daily Mirror | 206 | 5.8% | 204 | 5.9% | 2 | |
| Irish Sun | 301 | 8.5% | 309 | 8.9% | -8 | |
| Irish Daily Mail | 139 | 3.9% | 117 | 3.4% | 22 | |
| Any Daily | 2037 | 57.8% | 2009 | 57.7% | 28 | |
| Any Morning | 1883 | 53.4% | 1852 | 53.2% | 31 | |
| Evening Titles | ||||||
| Evening Herald | 317 | 9.0% | 315 | 9.0% | 2 | |
| Free Titles | ||||||
| Herald AM | 100 | 2.8% | ||||
| Metro | 90 | 2.6% | ||||
| Any Free Newspaper | 126 | 3.6% | ||||
| Sunday Titles | ||||||
| Sunday Independent | 941 | 26.7% | 1019 | 29.3% | -78 | |
| Sunday Tribune | 152 | 4.3% | 218 | 6.3% | -66 | |
| Sunday World | 919 | 26.1% | 922 | 26.5% | -3 | |
| Sunday Business Post | 155 | 4.4% | 159 | 4.6% | -4 | |
| Sunday Times | 337 | 9.6% | 363 | 10.4% | -26 | |
| Irish News of the World | 569 | 16.1% | 571 | 16.4% | -2 | |
| Irish Sunday Mirror | 137 | 3.9% | 162 | 4.7% | -25 | |
| Irish People | 78 | 2.2% | 94 | 2.7% | -16 | |
| Irish Mail on Sunday | 268 | 7.6% | 252 | 7.2% | 16 | |
| Irish Daily Star Sunday | 207 | 5.9% | 178 | 5.1% | 29 | |
| Any Sunday | 2517 | 71.4% | 2523 | 72.4% | -6 | |
| WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS | ||||||
| Irish Farmers Journal | 220 | 6.2% | 239 | 6.9% | -19 | |
| Any RNAI /Mediaforce | 1504 | 42.7% | 1630 | 46.8% | -126 | |
| Magazines | ||||||
| RTE Guide | 285 | 8.1% | 342 | 9.8% | -57 | |
| Hot Press | 35 | 1.0% | 42 | 1.2% | -7 | |
| Image | 72 | 2.0% | 103 | 3.0% | -31 |
