Hot on the back of the circulation figures come the 2009 JNRS Readership Figures.
Belying the some of the myths – 87% of the Irish Adult population still read a paper every day (that’s a physical one for any cynics).
The largest read paper in Ireland is The Sunday Independent with a reach just short of 30%. A huge number when you consider that across the pond in the UK the reach of the highest read Sunday Paper is the News Of The World at (only) 15%.
It’s shadowed by the Sunday World which is still more than 100,000 readers off the leader. The survey wasn’t kind to The Sunday World which 107,000 readers in the year, by far the biggest drop out of all the titles.
Overall the survey shows that the ‘red tops’ seemed to have been punished in the twelve months but primarily the Sunday World, The Daily Star and the News of the World.
The free Dublin titles are no more so this will be their last individual numbers before they are morphed into the Metro AM. The free titles readership was growing with a ‘National Readership’ of 4%, which equated to about 11% reach in Dublin. While the frees climbed in Dublin the Evening Herald fell and fell below the 300k mark.
You could understand why a the Irish People which makes not real editorial/marketing effort here and is threading the water to stay above a circulation of 20,000 would pull out of the survey considering the substantial costs involved to a publication. But why the Daily Star on Sunday opted out is a curious one.
Completely against the circulation grain, the Regional Papers gain in readership on the previous survey.
Publication | 2007 | % | 2008 | % | 2009 | % | % | |||
Universe (000s) | 3483 | 3526 | ||||||||
AIR – Any newspaper | 3079 | 87.3% | 3050 | 86.5% | 3082 | 87.3% | 29 | |||
Morning Titles | ‘000 | % | ‘000 | % | ‘000 | % | ‘000 | % | ||
Irish Independent | 570 | 16.4% | 520 | 14.7% | 581 | 16.5% | 61 | 11.7% | ||
The Irish Times | 325 | 9.3% | 317 | 9.0% | 369 | 10.5% | 52 | 16.4% | ||
Irish Examiner | 267 | 7.7% | 202 | 5.7% | 208 | 5.9% | 6 | 3.0% | ||
Irish Daily Star | 441 | 12.7% | 482 | 13.7% | 420 | 11.9% | -62 | -12.9% | ||
Irish Daily Mirror | 204 | 5.9% | 206 | 5.8% | 211 | 6.0% | 5 | 2.4% | ||
Irish Sun | 309 | 8.9% | 301 | 8.5% | 295 | 8.3% | -6 | -2.0% | ||
Irish Daily Mail | 117 | 3.4% | 139 | 3.9% | 142 | 4.0% | 3 | 2.2% | ||
Any Daily | 2009 | 57.7% | 2037 | 57.8% | 1990 | 56.4% | -47 | -2.3% | ||
Any Morning | 1852 | 53.2% | 1883 | 53.4% | 1873 | 53.1% | -10 | -0.5% | ||
Evening Titles | ||||||||||
Evening Herald | 315 | 9.0% | 317 | 9.0% | 289 | 8.2% | -28 | -8.8% | ||
Free Titles | ||||||||||
Herald AM | 100 | 2.8% | 117 | 3.3% | 17 | 17.0% | ||||
Metro | 90 | 2.6% | 112 | 3.2% | 22 | 24.4% | ||||
Any Free Newspaper | 126 | 3.6% | 151 | 4.3% | 25 | 19.8% | ||||
Sunday Titles | ||||||||||
Sunday Independent | 1019 | 29.3% | 941 | 26.7% | 1031 | 29.2% | 90 | 9.6% | ||
Sunday Tribune | 218 | 6.3% | 152 | 4.3% | 185 | 5.3% | 33 | 21.7% | ||
Sunday World | 922 | 26.5% | 919 | 26.1% | 812 | 23.0% | -107 | -11.6% | ||
Sunday Business Post | 159 | 4.6% | 155 | 4.4% | 196 | 5.6% | 41 | 26.5% | ||
Sunday Times | 363 | 10.4% | 337 | 9.6% | 415 | 11.7% | 78 | 23.1% | ||
Irish News of the World | 571 | 16.4% | 569 | 16.1% | 517 | 14.6% | -52 | -9.1% | ||
Irish Sunday Mirror | 162 | 4.7% | 137 | 3.9% | 147 | 4.2% | 10 | 7.3% | ||
Irish People | 94 | 2.7% | 78 | 2.2% | ||||||
Irish Mail on Sunday | 252 | 7.2% | 268 | 7.6% | 302 | 8.6% | 34 | 12.7% | ||
Irish Daily Star Sunday | 178 | 5.1% | 207 | 5.9% | ||||||
Any Sunday | 2523 | 72.4% | 2517 | 71.4% | 2489 | 70.5% | 6 | 0.2% | ||
WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS | ||||||||||
Irish Farmers Journal | 239 | 6.9% | 220 | 6.2% | 272 | 7.7% | 19 | 8.6% | ||
Any RNAI /Mediaforce | 1630 | 46.8% | 1504 | 42.7% | 1566 | 44.4% | 126 | 8.4% |