Irish Times & Irish Independent Circulation Figures

LFC5Times

I think the figures for the last 6 months of 2011 (July to December) are out this Thursday or so for the two papers.

Be interesting to see how they have both done.

What is the likelihood of the Irish Independent ever taking over the Irish Times? Better chance of hell freezing over?

HalloweenJack

The Indo has been the biggest paper in Ireland for years.

The Times is definitely better quality but it's still a bit behind the Indo, iirc.

The Indo's circulation has been dropping at a quicker rate than the Times, afaik, so the gap could be closing but I imagine both papers are going to show a decrease in circulation.

dtipp

Maybe LFC5Times is just taking about broadsheet figures.

The Irish Times is the biggest selling broadsheet in the country/island.

ScouseMouse

As a newsagent, I pay no attention to the figures.

The indo gives away papers in the local pub, which then pulls down my sales.

I challenged the rep a while back and they quietly told me all those papers, even though they are given away, still go into the circulation figures.

Is that not corrupting the figures?

LFC5Times

superscouse wrote: »

As a newsagent, I pay no attention to the figures.

The indo gives away papers in the local pub, which then pulls down my sales.

I challenged the rep a while back and they quietly told me all those papers, even though they are given away, still go into the circulation figures.

Is that not corrupting the figures?

I'd be surprised if the Indo are allowed get away with free papers being included in their circulation figures. Is there not some independent body who has the final say on the circulation figures?

As regards the Indo pulling down your sales, would you not of lost more customers due to the Irish Times aggressive promotion of their free home delivery service?

I'm assuming you are in Dublin where they canvassed my area at least twice a year.

IRE60

Yes indeed – out this Thursday. So, on that day you will be able to finally officially see the Sales of some Irish papers for July 2010 – staggering indictment on their ‘pace’ to get information to the market in this day and age.

In the last five years the indo has dropped by 17% and the Times 14% (Jan June Figs)

Splitting hairs with the broadsheet/compact is rubbish, as the content in both Indo editions is exactly the same.

The ‘pub’ sales will indeed go in the circulation, because the pub would have ‘bought’ the papers and a contract like that would have to exist so that they go in the audit. Audit Bureau of circulations do the Audit and don't fcuk around - that's why they are seen as credible.

They could, however, be bought for as little as 10c a copy and they would fit into the “Regular Multiple Copy / Bulk Sales” section of the report which is included in their overall sales.

Last time out the Indo bulks accounted for 18% of their sales figure and the Irish Times had 14% bulks.

ScouseMouse

LFC5Times wrote: »

I'd be surprised if the Indo are allowed get away with free papers being included in their circulation figures. Is there not some independent body who has the final say on the circulation figures?

As regards the Indo pulling down your sales, would you not of lost more customers due to the Irish Times aggressive promotion of their free home delivery service?

I'm assuming you are in Dublin where they canvassed my area at least twice a year.

Nothing surprises me with the indo. I have awful trouble with them. Sometimes I get a phone call from publishers asking me to stock their titles but when I hear its handled by indo owned Newspread, I tell them out straight NO THANKS.

Thats what the rep told me. As for the Irish Times, I am unaware of that. Someone in there told me things were pretty bad, very bad in fact.

ScouseMouse

IRE60 wrote: »

Splitting hairs with the broadsheet/compact is rubbish, as the content in both Indo editions is exactly the same.

There must be some differences as a few of the old folk around me like to buy the broadsheet as apparently, it has farming news in it which is not in the compact.

IRE60

superscouse wrote: »

There must be some differences as a few of the old folk around me like to buy the broadsheet as apparently, it has farming news in it which is not in the compact.

Depends on where you're based. The farming is a supplement carried in both compact and broadsheet

LFC5Times

superscouse wrote: »

Nothing surprises me with the indo. I have awful trouble with them. Sometimes I get a phone call from publishers asking me to stock their titles but when I hear its handled by indo owned Newspread, I tell them out straight NO THANKS.

Thats what the rep told me. As for the Irish Times, I am unaware of that. Someone in there told me things were pretty bad, very bad in fact.

Where are you based do you mind me asking?

The reason I mentioned about the Indo taking over the Irish Times in my original post was because I heard something along the lines of that but its probably just rumour/chinese whispers.

IRE60

Indo taking over the Irish Times: I understand now - that will never happen = competition authority.

ScouseMouse

LFC5Times wrote: »

Where are you based do you mind me asking?

The reason I mentioned about the Indo taking over the Irish Times in my original post was because I heard something along the lines of that but its probably just rumour/chinese whispers.

I don't want to say to much, but there was a staff meeting a little while back where everyone was told that things were very tough and everything was being looked at.

Nothing we dont already know, for all of us, but do not take this to be implying anything about them being doomed. I am not saying this whatsoever.

dtipp

LFC5Times wrote: »

What is the likelihood of the Irish Independent ever taking over the Irish Times?

The Irish Times is owned by a Trust, so it cannot be taken over.
It would and could simply never happen.
Thank god.

LFC5Times

dtipp wrote: »

The Irish Times is owned by a Trust, so it cannot be taken over.
It would and could simply never happen.
Thank god.

Forgive my ignorance, but if the Irish Times starts to lose considerable money over the next few years will it just cease to exist if it cannot be taken over?

jmcc

LFC5Times wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance, but if the Irish Times starts to lose considerable money over the next few years will it just cease to exist if it cannot be taken over?

I think that it was mentioned somewhere that the Irish Times will be dependent on sales and advertising from sometime in the next few months as its cash reserves will have been fully depleted. Things could get interesting.

Regards...jmcc

dtipp

jmcc wrote: »

I think that it was mentioned somewhere that the Irish Times will be dependent on sales and advertising from sometime in the next few months as its cash reserves will have been fully depleted. Things could get interesting.

Regards...jmcc

Actually, from my limited knowledge, I believe The Irish Times got into trouble mainly due to its business outside the newspaper - i.e. myhome.ie, the Gazettes etc
There has already been a massive cost cutting exercise, and from what I hear the paper is actually back in the black for the past few months.
It had a big cash reserve but much of this money was spent on redundancies.

So, you're taking about a newspaper that is at least breaking even and has no debt at all - not exactly on the brink is it?

And I see it's going up in content, rather than down.
Business & finance supplement in the paper ever day from next Monday.

IRE60

dtipp wrote: »

Actually, from my limited knowledge, I believe The Irish Times got into trouble mainly due to its business outside the newspaper - i.e. myhome.ie, the Gazettes etc
There has already been a massive cost cutting exercise, and from what I hear the paper is actually back in the black for the past few months.
It had a big cash reserve but much of this money was spent on redundancies.

So, you're taking about a newspaper that is at least breaking even and has no debt at all - not exactly on the brink is it?

And I see it's going up in content, rather than down.
Business & finance supplement in the paper ever day from next Monday.

Yea - My Home.ie was one of the investments which they wrote down in 2009 (i think) - made 1m last year which was a good start

dtipp do you mean a financial supplement every day (as opposed to "Business & finance" - which is a magazine - not splitting hairs - just I associate the name with the mag).

jmcc

dtipp wrote: »

Actually, from my limited knowledge, I believe The Irish Times got into trouble mainly due to its business outside the newspaper - i.e. myhome.ie, the Gazettes etc

It made some rather poor decisions but then what could you expect? These weren't very smart people.

So, you're taking about a newspaper that is at least breaking even and has no debt at all - not exactly on the brink is it?

Actually that is the very definition of being on the brink. It has no reserves and is now completely dependent on outside forces (advertising and sales). And sales in the Irish newspaper market have been sliding for years. Wonder if the IT has gone below the 100K mark yet?

And I see it's going up in content, rather than down.
Business & finance supplement in the paper ever day from next Monday.

Classic dilution. The B&F section is the Irish Times' strongest section and it has competition from the Sunday Business Post's daily web version. The problem with growing what is perceived to be a high quality section is that quality does not scale linearly. Good journalism and analysis is expensive. The existing journalists will have to produce more content and they'll probably have to pad the section out with wire services and press releases. How the advertisers react will be the main concern.

Regards...jmcc

LFC5Times

Regarding the article below, are they just survey figures as suppose to official circulation figures?

Irish Examiner gains 6,000 readers a day in challenging times

By Vincent Ryan

Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Irish Examiner was the only broadsheet newspaper in Ireland to increase its readership last year.

The latest Joint National Readership Survey for 2011 has revealed that an extra 6,000 people a day now choose the Irish Examiner as their principal source of printed news.

The newspaper’s readership grew by 3% to reach an average total of 181,000 readers a day on average during the year.

Tim Vaughn, the editor of the Irish Examiner, described the readership increase as a "remarkable achievement" at a difficult time for the industry.

The newspaper’s bumper Weekend package has proved a huge success, attracting almost quarter of a million readers every week. The male-female readership balance of the Irish Examiner now stands at 45%-55%.

Frank Cullen, National Newspapers of Ireland co-ordinating director, said: "Newspaper publishing is all about original content. We place a very high value on quality, original journalism and I think the latest JNRS shows that most people in Ireland do as well."

This is the first set of readership results to take the Irish Examiner’s revamped Saturday package into account, featuring a Weekend supplement with a seven-day TV guide. Coverage of events such as the visits of Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama, along with the general and presidential elections, boosted the newspaper’s readership.

The survey also offered encouraging responses from younger readers. Almost 80% of 19- to 24-year-olds and more than 70% of 25- to 34-year-olds read a newspaper on a regular basis. Among students, almost 76% regularly read a newspaper.

"We’re very encouraged by our readership profile among younger people," said NNI’s Frank Cullen. "It’s one of the first statistics I look for when the JNRS is published, and once again it’s very pleasing to see that newspapers have maintained their popularity and relevance, even among today’s digital generation."

The only other newspaper to gain readers was The Irish Mirror (up 11%), with the Irish Independent and Irish Times suffering significant losses, down 62,000 (12%) and 29,000 (9%) readers respectively. The Irish Daily Star lost 12,000 readers (3%), the Irish Daily Mail is down 3,000 (2%) and The Sun is down 1%.

The Irish Examiner maintains its dominant position in Munster, where is continues to outstrip the combined readership of the Irish Independent and Irish Times by 12,000. The Irish Examiner also added to its traditional strong Cork readership base, attracting 14,000 additional readers. Reader loyalty remains a strength of the Irish Examiner, with 69% not reading any other daily title.

The Sunday Independent remained the most read Sunday title, with 939,000 readers. The Sunday World came second with 819,000, followed by the Sunday Times (386,000).

These figures also showed that while newspapers remain a core information source for people in Ireland, the frequency with which people read newspapers declined during 2011.

The data showed that occasional readers were making up a greater proportion of readers for daily and Sunday titles, according to Milward Brown’s figure analysis.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/irish-examiner-gains-6000-readers-a-day-in-challenging-times-184006.html#ixzz1mXA0hHNC

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/irish-examiner-gains-6000-readers-a-day-in-challenging-times-184006.html

LFC5Times

Newspaper readership falls by 2.4%

LAURA SLATTERY

NEWSPAPER READERSHIP in Ireland has declined by 2.4 per cent year-on-year, according to the Joint National Readership Survey published yesterday.

The JNRS report for 2011 shows that 2.89 million adults, or 81 per cent of the adult population, read the print editions of newspapers in the period. This compared with readership of 2.96 million a year earlier, representing 84 per cent of the adult population.

The Irish Times had an average daily readership of 310,000 people in the period, down from 339,000 in 2010.

The Irish Independent had an average daily readership of 477,000, down from 539,000 a year earlier, while the Examiner’s readership grew by 6,000 to 181,000. The Irish Daily Mail’s readership was 145,000, down 3,000.

The Daily Mirror fared best among the daily titles, growing its readership from 192,000 in 2010 to 214,000 in 2011. The Irish Daily Star had readership of 373,000, down 12,000, while the Irish Sun’s readership fell 2,000 to 275,000.

Among Sunday titles, the average readership per issue of the Sunday Independent was 939,000 in 2011, down from one million a year earlier. The Sunday World had 819,000 readers, down 2,000. The Sunday Times had an average readership of 386,000, down from 418,000 in 2010, although it recorded increases in the readership of its Magazine, Culture and Style supplements.

The Sunday Business Post’s readership was 154,000, down from 187,000.

The Irish Sunday Mirror grew its readership from 141,00 in 2010 to 183,000 in 2011. The Irish Mail on Sunday also saw its readership increase, recording an average of 338,000 readers per issue, up 9,000. It is likely that both titles picked up readers in the wake of the closure of the Irish News of the World last July.

The Irish Times had 163,000 Dublin readers, the highest number of any Irish morning title. Some 82 per cent of Irish Times readers are classed in the ABC1 social group, the largest percentage of any national title.

Among The Irish Times supplements, the Saturday Magazine attracts 365,000 readers on average per issue, while the Ticket has an average readership of 214,000. Readership of Health Plus stands at 299,000 readers per issue, up from 285,000.

Millward Brown Lansdowne, which compiled the report, suggested there was some evidence of a tendency among readers of daily titles to shift from regular to occasional readership.

Frank Cullen, co-ordinating director of the National Newspapers of Ireland, said readers had remained “remarkably loyal” to newspapers despite Ireland’s economic difficulties, with high readership rates even among the younger “digital” generation.

“Newspaper publishing is all about original content; we place a very high value on quality, original journalism, and I think the latest JNRS shows that most people in Ireland do as well,” he said.

The popularity of newspaper magazines suggested they were seen increasingly as representing good value for money, he added. “They have become a central part of the newspaper offering.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0216/1224311852866.html

dtipp

jmcc wrote: »

It made some rather poor decisions but then what could you expect? These weren't very smart people.

Agreed.

jmcc wrote: »

Actually that is the very definition of being on the brink. It has no reserves and is now completely dependent on outside forces (advertising and sales). And sales in the Irish newspaper market have been sliding for years. Wonder if the IT has gone below the 100K mark yet?

In this day and age, it certainly is not the definition of being on the brink.
There are so many prime newspapers throughout the world that have built up massive debt (what's Independent Newspapers debt stand at?).
Any company that has come through four years of recession with absolutely no debt (regardless of how much money is they have in the bank) and now having stopped losing money has to be considered to be in a strong position.

jmcc wrote: »

Classic dilution. The B&F section is the Irish Times' strongest section and it has competition from the Sunday Business Post's daily web version. The problem with growing what is perceived to be a high quality section is that quality does not scale linearly. Good journalism and analysis is expensive. The existing journalists will have to produce more content and they'll probably have to pad the section out with wire services and press releases. How the advertisers react will be the main concern.

Regards...jmcc

You haven't even seen it yet, and already you're criticising it?
Here's a bit of info about it.
http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/33978-irish-times-to-launch

IRE60

@LFC5Times
These are readership figures - without being pedantic- the number of people that read a paper on a daily basis.

It differs from the circulation figures - the numbers of people that buy the paper every day - a variation on the theme.

The Circs will be out later (Lunch time) - i'll fire something up here after:

My Thoughts:

IT <100
Indo 120's (so long as it hasn't "hit the pies" - ie increased the bulks)
EX hanging onto the 40's
World - no real lift form NoW closure
SBP <45


C

LFC5Times

IRE60 wrote: »

@LFC5Times
These are readership figures - without being pedantic- the number of people that read a paper on a daily basis.

It differs from the circulation figures - the numbers of people that buy the paper every day - a variation on the theme.

The Circs will be out later (Lunch time) - i'll fire something up here after:

My Thoughts:

IT <100
Indo 120's (so long as it hasn't "hit the pies" - ie increased the bulks)
EX hanging onto the 40's
World - no real lift form NoW closure
SBP <45


C

Thanks.

IIRC the IT circulation last year was down on the previous year but financially they're overall profit was up on the previous year.

IRE60

The ABC site is now saying that the report is out 23rd!

IRE60

actually I may have confused it with the Mags report:o

redalan

The monthly Innovation magazine with the IT is excellent. Loads of interesting reading. They have articles of good depth. If that was produced on a daily basis, it would certainly attract one more reader.

jmcc

dtipp wrote: »

In this day and age, it certainly is not the definition of being on the brink.

Publishing is not like a normal business. Exceptional costs (losing a law suit for example) can push a publication into debt or wipe it out completely.

Any company that has come through four years of recession with absolutely no debt (regardless of how much money is they have in the bank) and now having stopped losing money has to be considered to be in a strong position.

But that's not quite the way things were. Its cash reserves were being depleted and over the next few months, it may be depending purely on advertising, sales and subscriptions. There will be no cushion for a poor trading period. It may appear to have no debt but it has no reserves either.

You haven't even seen it yet, and already you're criticising it?
Here's a bit of info about it.
http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/33978-irish-times-to-launch

Looks like a recycled press release. Watch for others in the next few weeks with circle jerk quotes from key people in the Irish Times about how this is a great thing for Irish business.

Regards...jmcc

dtipp

There's this doing the rounds now.
Looks like it's all starting from this Monday anyway.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/36495250?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

jmcc

dtipp wrote: »

There's this doing the rounds now.
Looks like it's all starting from this Monday anyway.

Wonder if they will ramp up their online advertising spend? That cack-handed repurposing of ireland.com looks more stupid by the day.

Regards...jmcc

irishh_bob

dtipp wrote: »

Maybe LFC5Times is just taking about broadsheet figures.

The Irish Times is the biggest selling broadsheet in the country/island.

the irish independant used only have a broadsheet , its tabloid version was only introduced in the past decade and the indo sells more papers each day than the times

i doubt the indo would ever buy the times , the indo is a centre right paper , the irish times is centre left , would be like the telegraph in the uk buying the guardian , granted the guardian is more left wing than the irish times

sataction

Indo pulling out of ABC circulation audit for regional papers.

What are they hiding. Plummeting sales perhaps.

http://gu.com/p/35h25

dtipp

sataction wrote: »

Indo pulling out of ABC circulation audit for regional papers.

What are they hiding. Plummeting sales perhaps.

http://gu.com/p/35h25

That's very strange.
Whatever about the general public looking at the figures, you'd imagine advertisers - particularly larger ones that would be used to picking and choosing where to put their ads - would use the ABC figures.

IRE60

As a rule the Irish print media haven’t exactly propelled themselves down the information super highway, actually some of them are waiting for the last bus or a free ride home as far as I can see.
IN&M latest hat trick really stunned me. And it’s not for the first time.
The whole concept of transparency seems to allude them and they may be trying to ‘trade off their good looks’.
For example – No audit on the circulation of it’s twelve regional’s, coupled with no e-audit of that website traffic.
A bi-annual audit of the nationals which means that in two days time (next release date) we’ll all know the sale of the Sunday Indo for June last year.
A sales figure for a paper published 239 days ago.
I can flick screens here, see who on a website site at the moment, how the got there and where they are from, how long they’ve been on the site and what they’ve visited.
Hell- if I thought it was worth it I could have a conversation with one of them live, help them through a process if I though they are getting stuck.
In that context 239 days if laughable in this day and age.
Also, to compound the transparency: the main titles Indo and Sunday Indo haven’t had an e-audit on their sites since November 2010!
And finally, they withdraw the last piece of verifiable ‘sales’ information available to a potential advertisers in an already very hard pressed Regional Press.
How are you supposed to a) sell a title and b) come up with an ad rate without any audited figures.
Take the Wicklow People for example– charging €2,100 for a full page – based on …. an audited figure from Jan-June 2010? Who says that the €2,100 is the current rate and based on what exactly..