“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 Sunday Independent dropped below two hundred thousand to land on 199,000 and even 12,000 bulks couldn’t save them. They lost 14,000 over the year or 6.7% slightly above the overall Sunday Market decline. They further widened the gap between themselves and nearest rival, the Sunday World who had a bad first half dropping 15,000copies (unfortunate top spot accolade for that decline) over the year. It fell just shy of 9% of a decline but
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
For the monthly providers of circulation data the report today the final one for 2015. This also allows us to provide their July-December numbers. For the other papers on our shelves, we will have to wait for another few weeks until they provide that data. The December’s numbers were nothing by way of excitement with the Daily Star providing something by way of change as it managed a gain on the month of 1,200 whereas
The penultimate month in ’15 brings little by way of cheer. The only change in the ABC’s is that they now have a new report which measures the digital editions of the papers – not that it’s going to make a huge difference here as they report a total of 110 digital sales in November in Ireland – across all titles! Their new format is also a little confusing as the ABC report no ‘digital
The October ABC’s show little signs of excitement, as per normal, bar the dramatic reduction in the sales of the Daily Star Sunday. Between September and October they have dropped by over 40% to just 9,000 copies from 15,000. A drop would either have to be “self imposed” if the publisher decided to alter (dramatically) the distribution of the title or there was a third party involved like a chain dropping them. I’ll dig a
It’s a study in newspaper purchasing fickleness this month. The circulation ebb and flow in full view for some of the titles with the numbers they picked up last month disappearing. The Star lost 4,200 in circulation month on month having gained nearly the exact number the month prior to that. The other morning tabloids were, in the words of Churchill, “least worst”. The Sun and Mirror dropped as well, but not as spectacularly as
The football Gods look like the looked kindly on some of the titles as their numbers were up on the previous month – most likely on the back of a culmination of the premier league, bigger games in both football and hurling and, least we should forget, the Galway races. The morning tabloids all saw an increase month on month with The Star increasing 4,235 or 8% on the month. The Irish Daily Mail also
Clarity: Now, I’ve had to amend this on the back of the numbers for the Independent coming to light. I got a call at 3:30 and the cert is there – now. Their cert was not there this morning or even at lunchtime so I can’t understand what the delay was, and, given the amount of times the Independent IP address appeared in this sites analytics this morning/afternoon – I can’t understand why it was
