The decline continues

IRE60 · 28-06-2019 10:21am

Muahahaha wrote: »

Has anyone seen any articles or analysis on how the Guardians donation/crowdfunding model is working? Is it said to be successful and has there been any financials published on it?

The article doesn't give too much away - but its about as good as you will get
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-has-received-donations-from-more-than-1m-people-but-is-not-a-charity-says-editor-kath-viner/

JTMan · 07-07-2019 8:29am

The Sunday Times reports that Beach Point Capital have provided funding to Encircle Business Post 365 (who own the Sunday Business Post), Maximum Media (who own Joe.ie etc) and Irish Studio (who own owner of Irish Tatler magazine). Beach Point Capital have a charge over some SBP assets.

Beach Point Capital effectively have a stake in some Irish media.

Muahahaha · 07-07-2019 11:53pm

IRE60 wrote: »

The article doesn't give too much away - but its about as good as you will get
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-has-received-donations-from-more-than-1m-people-but-is-not-a-charity-says-editor-kath-viner/

Yeah there is not much there in terms of financials. Still she says that they are on track to get back to profit so it is pointing in the right direction. Interesting that half of donations are coming from the US and that two thirds in total coming from outside the UK. Also donations are now outstripping advertising revenue.

JTMan · 08-07-2019 8:58pm

The likely new owner of IN&M, Mediahuis, are interested in acquiring JPIMedia, who publish 200 UK newspapers including i.

The consolidate and gain scale to extend lifetime strategy for the newspaper industry strikes again.

JTMan · 10-07-2019 7:09pm

I find it interesting that DMG Media Ireland (Daily Mail group) seem to be gradually giving up the ghost on their newspaper publication but are pumping cash into their 2 Irish digital offerings - Extra.ie and EVOKE.ie. The latest evidence is Extra.ie are to be the sponsors of the FAI Cup.

DMG, probably thanks to the Daily Mail Online success, still believe in the free content supported by adverts model despite the small scale of the Irish market. Madness?

Muahahaha · 10-07-2019 9:24pm

Maybe they have come to the realisation that the Daily Mail brand itself is toxic for a lot of people in Ireland and rebranding online as Extra and Evoke is the only way to go. Wont help either that the newsroom just got slapped with a €45,000 fine for their reporting on the Ana Kriegel case, with their very low circulation numbers it was a bit of a hit.

JTMan · 11-07-2019 1:53pm

I think DMG Media are trying to gain revenue from their content by spreading their content over a number of websites (as well as the newspaper) in order to maximise revenue.

I think they see Daily Mail Online as the global brand with global content but Extra.ie and Evoke.ie as the local brands with local content.

JTMan · 18-07-2019 6:47pm

June 2019 ABC circulation for UK newspapers in Ireland here and UK stats here.

UK newspapers in Ireland market is down 11% YoY. The print journey into sunset continues.

JTMan · 23-07-2019 6:11pm

Laura Slattery is at it again. Telling the world how rosy things are at the Irish Times.

No mention of the rapidly declining print revenue.

Makes reference to 'operating profit' but quotes the operating profit before exceptional items and amortisation of goodwill. The amortisation of goodwill is a legitimate P&L expense given inflated goodwill figures. The real total operating profit was 15,499 EUR.

The 90,000 subscribers figure in her article sounds impressive but is the figure honest? Why do ABC report it was 21,271. Who is giving the more honest measurement?

jmcc · 23-07-2019 8:26pm

JTMan wrote: »

The 90,000 subscribers figure in her article sounds impressive but is the figure honest? Why do ABC report it was 21,271. Who is giving the more honest measurement?

Actual subscribers versus total number of subscribers over a year including short-term subscribers? That's a really high churn rate though if ABC is the accurate source.

Regards...jmcc

IRE60 · 24-07-2019 12:03am

jmcc wrote: »

Actual subscribers versus total number of subscribers over a year including short-term subscribers? That's a really high churn rate though if ABC is the accurate source.

Regards...jmcc

Interesting point. From my dealing with them (ABC) it was every month how many papers sold divided by the period days (simply put). I'll find out how the 'subcriber' is delt with, but as JT has alluded to - I would think it's Don Quixote - mind not in balance with reality!

L1011 · 24-07-2019 12:44am

They have digital+print subs that ABC would not count twice but they might, but if that's 5k I'd be amazed

IRE60 · 24-07-2019 12:53pm

L1011 wrote: »

They have digital+print subs that ABC would not count twice but they might, but if that's 5k I'd be amazed

I'd say this offer accounts for a good few thousand!

https://www.irishtimes.com/subscribe/student/

JTMan · 24-07-2019 9:00pm

The ABC figure apparently includes only digital subscribers who receive the ePaper as part of their subscription. The Irish Times have 4 main digital packages. The epaper is not included in their cheapest digital package. I guess the 90k versus 21k difference is explained by the fact that 70k of subscribers are on the cheapest plan without an ePaper or the totally free student package.

I guess ABC only include ePaper subscribers because it is more their circulation stats are aimed at advertisers who want to know if people will see their print advert but I bet many people who get the ePaper in their package do not even look at it.

Anyway, 70k of the 90k pay between zero and 3 EUR a week.

IRE60 · 24-07-2019 10:44pm

JTMan wrote: »

The ABC figure apparently includes only digital subscribers who receive the ePaper as part of their subscription. The Irish Times have 4 main digital packages. The epaper is not included in their cheapest digital package. I guess the 90k versus 21k difference is explained by the fact that 70k of subscribers are on the cheapest plan without an ePaper or the totally free student package.

I guess ABC only include ePaper subscribers because it is more their circulation stats are aimed at advertisers who want to know if people will see their print advert but I bet many people who get the ePaper in their package do not even look at it.

Anyway, 70k of the 90k pay between zero and 3 EUR a week.

Yea, I read that earlier - the epaper is the digital static version of the paper - no other form is tolerated - so if you pay and opt out of the epaper you are not counted! I suppose it filters out the students. The epaper model is a bit past tense at this point - strange the ABC don't modify their line of sight.

L1011 · 24-07-2019 11:52pm

My package has the epaper. Not even installed the app!

JTMan · 27-07-2019 7:44pm

IRE60 wrote: »

The epaper model is a bit past tense at this point - strange the ABC don't modify their line of sight.

Yeah, neither the Irish Times self-measurement method nor the ABC method seem fair. The IT method includes free subs which is hardly a 'subscription' and the ABC digital measurement is too narrow.

The honest digital subs figure for the IT is somewhere between 21k and 90k. If only an accurate stat was available.

JTMan · 30-07-2019 8:24pm

Mediahuis have court approval and minster approval. Next step is to buy remaining shares and take the company private which will take a month. Meanwhile the OECD mess continues.

JTMan · 03-08-2019 4:07pm

More than half of all workers at the printing plant of Celtic Media, are to be laid off after the loss of its most lucrative contract, to print the Irish Daily Mirror, staff have been told.

JTMan · 13-08-2019 6:25pm

The Clare People regional newspaper has ceased publication. Accounts for Clare College News Limited, the company that owns the title, show it had racked up more than €1.5 million in losses by the end of 2017.

JTMan · 15-08-2019 9:08pm

ABC time again ... (with a much bigger day on Thursday next week with the Irish circulation numbers)

UK newspaper circulation in Ireland for July 2019 analysis by iLevel here.

UK analysis here.

Magazine circulation analysis here, here and here.

The journey into the sunset for print continues.

IRE60 · 16-08-2019 11:20am

Yea - Thursday should be 'fun'. The rate of decline is really beginning to escalate, more than I would have expected.

The papers on the monthly ABC (the majority in the market) are, on a six month basis, showing an 11% decline year on year to July 2019. Historically the figures show that the decline of the monthly ABC papers and the six monthly, when looked at on a six month basis are highly correlated – therefore, bar any fcukology in the bulks department, I’d expect the same for Thursday.

JTMan · 16-08-2019 3:45pm

IRE60 wrote: »

The rate of decline is really beginning to escalate, more than I would have expected.

Yeah, it was not that long ago that the rate of decline seemed to be a steady 8% YoY. The average rate of decline in the UK, for the non-free national newspapers is now 12% YoY. This compares to 14% YoY for UK dailies in Ireland and 11% YoY for UK Sundays in Ireland. The magazine market, in the UK, is declining at an average of 16% for the non-free titles. Low double digit annual percentage declines seems to be the norm now for annual print declines which might accelerate the timeline for the closure of print titles.

IRE60 · 22-08-2019 10:40am

Well - we may never know! Looks as if Independent News & Media have pulled out of the ABC certification!

JTMan · 22-08-2019 10:53am

This is very disappointing news. Was really looking forward to the figures.

I bet advertisers will be unhappy. Advertisers can no longer get their hands on reliable figures. Hopefully some major advertisers put pressure on INM to be ABC re-certified.

IRE60 · 22-08-2019 11:16am

ABC reply to email:

'Independent News & Media has made the decision to resign its titles from ABC membership. Effective from 20th August 2019, the Sunday Independent, Sunday World, The Herald and the Irish Independent ceased to be in membership. ABC figures for these titles were last published in our February 2019 Island of Ireland report for the reporting period ending December 2018. These figures have been audited'

JTMan · 22-08-2019 1:37pm

The ABC report (minus IN&M :mad:) is out.

iLevel have excellent analysis, as always, here.

IRE60 · 22-08-2019 1:46pm

The Irish Times struck again. Shined up their own sh!t and added their sales, digital and bulks into one figure. In their sales, although not broken down, are their sales across the border - however when discussing everyone else - they just used their RoI numbers. Amazing really.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/the-irish-times-records-daily-circulation-of-79-021-in-first-half-of-2019-1.3993973

bogmanfan · 22-08-2019 3:56pm

They should heed the lessons of horror movies, especially the Blair Witch Project:

'What we are imagining is far worse than anything they could show us'

JTMan · 22-08-2019 6:22pm

A few thoughts on todays figures:

- INM have strangely left the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Life titles inside the ABC.
- @IE60 - Your comment about the People: "You can only speculate as to where the ‘red line’ is for the paper in terms of economics and maintaining a presence in the Irish market at sales of less than 7,000". The People have a presence in a bubble wrapping way only. The People has little or no Irish content except TV listings.
- The future of the Irish Daily Star and to a lesser extent the Irish Mirror looks precarious. As does the Sunday Business Post.
- One would wonder if the INM circulation decline figures were so bad that it helped spur an ABC exit.
- I wish we had accurate digital stats for the Irish Times. ABC skew with their stupid epaper rule. Irish Times exaduate by including free subs.

IRE60 · 22-08-2019 7:46pm

It’s interesting times! A clear marker laid down as to the direction the new owners want to take. They obviously feel that the ABC metric is not where they are at – which begs a question - what is the metric for the future as far as they are concerned.
You have to have an independent assessment of your figures, in my opinion. Perhaps the agencies have been given access, but I am also told that TGI research is a standard for them.
What do the 'remainers' do! Stay with ABC or, now that that the indo is gone, do they leave?
Regardless, there has to be some standard of measurement that's applicable across the industry - otherwise, buyers would be reliant on 'publishers statements'. A genious MD I worked for many years back said that a publishers statement was about as sincere as a kiss from a whore!

Loafing Oaf · 23-08-2019 11:06am

IRE60 wrote: »

It’s interesting times! A clear marker laid down as to the direction the new owners want to take. They obviously feel that the ABC metric is not where they are at – which begs a question - what is the metric for the future as far as they are concerned.
You have to have an independent assessment of your figures, in my opinion. Perhaps the agencies have been given access, but I am also told that TGI research is a standard for them.
What do the 'remainers' do! Stay with ABC or, now that that the indo is gone, do they leave?
Regardless, there has to be some standard of measurement that's applicable across the industry - otherwise, buyers would be reliant on 'publishers statements'. A genious MD I worked for many years back said that a publishers statement was about as sincere as a kiss from a whore!

Mediahuis are serious people though. You'd have to assume they wouldn't they wouldn't take a step like this without first ascertaining it wouldn't do them serious harm with advertisers.

IRE60 · 23-08-2019 11:19am

Yea, I'd agree with that. Perhaps that metric had seen its day in terms of media planning. As I mentioned most agencies use TGI research which might cover all the basis.

And further (he says animatedly) if the media agencies have that data - then why should the papers release any data! Just to satisfy the curious!

JTMan · 08-09-2019 8:16am

The previous owner of the Sunday Business Post lost 1.1 million EUR on the sale of the business. That's what happens when you invest in legacy old media newspaper assets with low digital footprints.

LuasSimon · 08-09-2019 8:23am

The Irish independent can’t be in great shape , don’t know anyone who buys it and every hotel you go into there’s free copies everywhere , that’s hardly a sustainable model ??
For what it’s with Friday’s free copy I picked up wouldn’t have you going out to buy it , very sensationalist headlines with very little detail in articles , lots of waffle .
It seems to hate the Church , The GAA and rural Ireland which alienated a lot of rural Ireland in particular over the past few years .

JTMan · 08-09-2019 10:49am

Based on 2018 numbers, about 17k free copies of the Indo are given away daily, which is about a quarter of overall circulation.

The quality of the product has certainly declined as page numbers have been reduced, journalists have been let go which is as a consequence of declining circulation and declining advertising revenue which have being on a rapid download curve for about 12 years now.

That said, it is still profitable but profits are declining and the challenges are enormous.

Muahahaha · 08-09-2019 11:24am

Anytime I pick up a free Indo I've literally read it in less than 10 minutes as you've already seen all the articles (or a variation of them) online 24 or 48 hours previous. Its pretty pointless unless you never read news online and their opinion writers are generally very poor with nothing new to say except to push their agendas.

Loafing Oaf · 08-09-2019 2:24pm

LuasSimon wrote: »

It seems to hate the GAA

I've never seen any sign of that. GAA coverage takes up a huge chunk of the sports pages every summer

LuasSimon · 08-09-2019 8:51pm

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I've never seen any sign of that. GAA coverage takes up a huge chunk of the sports pages every summer

A few articles the weekend that might be reasonable but Martin breheny and Colin keys etc have an article most other days with the most negative gaa article they can come up with as their objective.

JTMan · 10-09-2019 8:24pm

Always fascinated as to how the smaller newspapers keep their head above water.

The results for Independent Star, who publish the Irish Daily Star came out today for 2018.

- Turnover was down from 17.4 million to 16.1 million
- Distribution and printing expenses down from 4.4 million to 4.2 million
- Wages and staff costs were down from 4.2 million to 4.1 million
- Reach paid 0.4 million for content from the UK star.
- Profit down from 1.5 million to 0.8 million.
- Legal provision up by 0.4 million.
- Lease expires this year.

Once again they keep their head above water thanks to cost cutting but the cost cutting scope seems to be narrowing.

IRE60 · 10-09-2019 9:19pm

That's a decent legal provision - wonder if there is something in the pipeline!

JT which lease is up?

JTMan · 11-09-2019 6:57am

The accounts do not say. It's obviously the Independent House sub lease or a legacy lease. Probably the former.

Staff levels are 48 (down from 50 and excludes freelancers), I guess they will stay put in Independent House.

IRE60 · 11-09-2019 8:26am

another one (mag)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/10/marie-claire-uk-cease-print-publication-after-31-years

JTMan · 12-09-2019 7:40pm

August 2019 ABC numbers for the UK here and UK in Ireland numbers here.

In the UK, the Daily Star and the People are in freefall ...

The biggest year-on-year decline was reported by the Daily Star Sunday at 19 per cent, followed by the Sunday People at 18 per cent.

JTMan · 14-09-2019 8:19am

Media Guardian on the struggle for survival in the magazine market.

Doblin · 15-09-2019 11:15pm

What will be the first Irish national newspaper to cease print ? My money is on the examiner

JTMan · 16-09-2019 5:43am

My bet would be the Irish Daily Star. The Irish Mirror and the Sunday Business Post are other strong possibilities.

Doblin · 16-09-2019 7:44am

Readership of the Sunday business post has gone down further since Enda O'Coineen bought it.

ElectronVolt · 16-09-2019 8:05am

I'd say the SBP has more chance of making a go of it as an online only publication due to the audience it tends to reach. The Examiner is a normal morning, daily paper with a significant traditional print market. It wouldn't be a great idea for them to go online only. I could see the Examiner and Irish Times ending up functionally much more merged though to ensure both papers survive.

I couldn't see the tabloids making a transition to online only. I would suspect you'd see some attempt to go online only if a UK parent does, but I would say it would also be the death of the publication of it did.

The interesting thing in Ireland has been the growth of The Journal as an online only publication that began its life online. It's also very much using the same model as the old print industry, Distilled Media also owning Daft, the largest property advertising site by a country my mile. It's exactly the same kind of financial model used by the Sunday papers decades ago.

JTMan · 29-09-2019 7:33am

Big changes coming at the SBP. It is going daily, going global and changing the name to the Business Post. Details in November. Article here.

Oh yeah, tough guy, so what are you planning to do with the Post? “Reinvent it in a dramatic way,” O’Coineen announced, promising more details in November. It will be a “digital big-data platform that just happens to have a successful newspaper on a Sunday”, he added — though the “Sunday” bit is going and it will become The Business Post, which will publish daily.

“We’re going to be the global business newspaper,” O’Coineen declared.

The decline continues

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