It’s not really surprising that Cheltenham helped the tabloids as it does every year. Collectively they are up 4,600 on February with The Sun taking the lion’s share of that adding 2,400 on the month. Outside that the Morning market was fairly quiet. The Sunday market doesn’t get a lift from Cheltenham. Nevertheless, there were a few changes. Collectively the tabloids were down just shy of 2,000. The Mail on Sunday was down 1,200 and
February ABC’s were released and it’s the usual swings and roundabouts. In the morning market, the Mirror and The Sun saw the biggest falls with the Daily Star managing to maintain roughly where it was last month. The Daily Mail’s decline can be partially attributed to a decline in bulks and to a lesser extend a decline in retail sales. The Daily Star on Sunday defied all odds and managed a 1,300 increase in sales
Probably the bellwether statistic of recent times is the rate of decline in circulation year on year. The Island of Ireland Report July-Dec 2016 shows that in the latter half of 2016 the Sunday and morning markets have reversed any small gains they had made in the last few years. You can clearly see from the graphic below that, whilst not setting the world alight, the most recent few reports show the market moving somewhat
As the Island of Ireland report hit the desk today I’m going to limit the analysis on the January monthly ABC’s! A few notables are The Sunday Mirror and People did badly on the year on year. The Sunday Times is up 1% as is The Sun Title Jan-17 Jan-16 Dec-16 Y/Y M/M % Y/Y %M/M Daily Mirror 35,433 38,765 34,503 -3,332 930 -9% 3% Daily Record 257 263 258 -6 -1 -2% 0%
The final chapter on 2016 with the ABC’s for December for a certain amount of papers – we have to wait until the 16th of next month to see the tally for the other papers. December is traditionally a slow month for papers and many of the days across the month are ‘excluded’ – an allowable feature where, due to circumstances like public holidays or a press failure you can remove those days from your
Less than ten years ago the Irish Daily Star published their ABC cert for July December 2007. It turned in at 112,040 – a record high (or a new high at that point). The paper had been on a winning streak since 2001 when it first crossed the 100,000 threshold and stayed there until the last six months of 2009. November sees another benchmark for the title as it dips below 50,000 for the first
It’s a bit much in terms of data, but none the less very interesting given the happenings across the pond over the last twelve months. The UK NRS readership data was released this week giving a plethora of data across various media where publications are available. It’s worth pointing out that the categories are not exclusive: print is not print only. A person answering that the saw a print edition of a paper may also
“Another Day, another drop”. ABC for October are out and the ever repetitive story of newspaper sales continues. I’d reckon the market (as under the lamp here and not taking into account the laggards that have a bi-annual certificate) will be down 5% on the previous year, which bizarrely enough is an improvement on this time last year where the same papers were down in or around 8% at this point. So maybe the decline
The September ABC figures today do little to stir the digits into tapping the keys. All very much as expected with some of the gains made in the July/August period slowly dwindling away this month. The Sun fell back 1,500 but much of that was self-inflicted. At one point (May) they were running at near 2,000 copies per month in ‘bulks’ but this shrunk to 530 bulks for September and probably accounts for most of
If there’s one thing we learn from the figures this month, it’s that there’s a particular fickleness to tabloid readers. I said in June that the Sun’s €.50 promotion could have cost the company in the region of €600k in foregone revenue for that month. And you’d expect some ROI on that, but the figure for this month is 1,700 above May and a lonely 34 copies above April. The Star is on a downward
The top selling paper in the morning market remains the Irish Independent selling 102,000 every day down 7,000 (6%) on the previous year. It has nearly 17,000 in multiple copy sales, up slightly from last year, with 83.5% of its circulation figure ‘actively purchased’. The certificate also shows that it has 1,602 ‘digital subscriptions’, so there is a measure of migration in their 7,000 reduction in sales over the year with at least some of
Even if a few papers grace us with figures, the monthly figures still churn away. July ABC’s today and for many a tabloid it’s a drop from the previous month of European football. The Tabloids are down nearly 4,000 but looking at The Sun it would seem that their pricing promotion pad off this month in recruiting some purchasers as their post promotion July is higher than their pre-promotion May figure by 7,000. The Mail
The figures today bring us to the halfway point in the year. Like last month, there are a few numbers below the surface distorting reality – which I’ll endeavour to bring to the surface. The most notable number is that of The Sun who had a sale of 69,000 for the month, an increase of 19% on the previous month. Initially, the paper declared it was going to run a €0.50 promotion throughout the Euro’s
May circulation figures arrived and the expression ‘swings and roundabouts’ has never been more appropriate. There seems to have been much movement in the figures and many of the stirrings are below the surface. The Daily Mirror stayed stationary in comparison to April at 39,000. The Sun dropped back 1,700 on the month but is still marginally ahead of last year. Overall the tabloids were ahead by close to 3,000 on the month. In the
It’s as good a time as any to examine the underlying conditions that account for newspaper sales in the ABC circulation figures and this month (May 2016) we have the whole spectrum of allowables in the various publications. Below is a table the papers who have “sales” that fall into categories other than single copy retails sales – i.e. sales that are occurring outside your normal retail environment. These are perfectly legitimate and come with
If you saw last month’s figures you may have been lulled in a false scene of security by some of the numbers. But April is most definitely payback time. The Cheltenham pin-prickers and multiple tabloid purchases have all but disappeared and the tabloids took a knock for 4,400 copies collectively month on month. The Daily Star took the brunt of that blow shedding 3,000 copies on the month, but, on a positive note, it’s ahead
Before we dive into the numerics we have to reacquaint ourselves with some of the social aspects of the month gone: St Patrick’s Day, All Ireland Club Finals, Cheltenham, Easter and the 1916 Commemorations and a shutdown of primary and secondary schools for nearly three weeks (which disrupts household patterns which might knock on to purchasing behavior). The main competition this month is usually between the tabloids fighting for those horse racing punters looking for
Honest, this is all you get on the Feast Days. And it’s not devotion during the day that’s the distraction, more complete the lack of abstinence! So the brief on this is that some of the tabloids are doing well and the Sun in the morning in particular.
The ABC’s for the period July to December 2015 were released today and show the continuing decline of newspaper sales in Ireland. The total market has declined by 6.2% over the twelve months, however that’s a smaller decline in overall sales then seen in a few years – if we’re viewing this as a “least worst” scenario. I think we do have to view it in those terms, as I don’t think the populous are
The first numbers of 2016: I’m going to be brief as the six month ABC’s have robbed most of the time. Mornings: Irish Daily star down over 1,500 as The Daily Mail adds some 4,300 to its number. Sundays: The Sun and the Mirror rebounded after the Christmas lull in sales. The Mail on Sunday lost 4,500 and the Sunday Times put on over 3,000 to bring them back over 80K Title Jan-16 Jan-15 Dec-15
