ABCs: Fairfax print decline accelerates as first audited digital numbers are released
Fairfax Media’s metro newspapers have seen some of the biggest percentage circulation slides since audits began with falls of more than 10% for its flagships The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald along with its Sunday titles The Sunday Age and the Sun-Herald.
The company claims the fall is part of a deliberate strategy to move away from unprofitable print copies to digital subscribers.
NSW – print:
In Sydney, Monday to Friday circulation of the SMH fell by 13.6% to 180,960, according to quarterly data for January to the end of March released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The fall marks an acceleration of the title’s 11.94% fall in the last set of numbers.
Rival title The Daily Telegraph, published by News Limited, decreased its Monday to Friday circulation by 1.4% to 336,348.
The SMH’s Saturday circulation fell by 13.8% to 293,234 – the first time it has been below 300,000.
The Saturday edition of The Tele increased its circulation by 0.8% to 327,447.
By contrast, a year ago the SMH led the Tele by 15,367 copies on a Saturday. Now The Tele has moved ahead by 34,213 copies.
The Sun-Herald – whose relaunch only covers the final edition of the audit period – sank by 10.8% to 383,607.
Rival The Sunday Telegraph rose by 0.8% to 609,167 print sales, representing a lead which has widened from 188,000 to 225,000.
NSW – digital:
In the first digital data under the new reporting standard, there were some green shoots for Fairfax, particularly with the Sun-Herald. Its fall of around 47,000 print copies was almost offset by 40,268 digital replica edition sales, which have been included in the ABCs’ audit standard for the first time. However, 15,929 of these have been classified in the school sales category and a further 3,730 in tertiary educational sales. These categories are potentially of less interest to advertisers.
Digital sales of the SMH were 36,816 for Monday to Friday and 40,158 for Saturday. About half were in the school or tertiary education subs sales categories.
Roughly half of the papers’ digital numbers come from standalone sales, and half through a joint print-digital package.
News Limited is yet to report its digital sales under the new ABC standard. Reporting is not compulsory for ABC members until July 1 next year.
A spokesman for Fairfax Media’s metro division said: “Metro Media’s strategy is to focus on profitable print circulation where reader engagement is high and reduce low-yield print circulation. The circulation results reflect that planned strategy.”
The company was due to release an update on its digital audiences across all platforms later today. It was not available at the time of posting.
Victoria – print:
The Monday to Friday circulation of The Age sank by 13.4% to 165,091. The Saturday circulation was down by 12.4% to 241,029.
News Limited rival The Herald-Sun saw Monday to Friday sales fall 3% to 336,348 and Saturday sales drop by 3.5% to 472,047.
The figures mean that for the first time The Herald-Sun has double the sales of The Age.
The Sunday Age saw its circulation fall by 8.6% to 206,068. The Sunday Herald-Sun fell by 5% to 543,400.
The Age had 9,311 replica edition sales from Monday-Friday, 9,369 for Saturday and 9,376 for The Sunday Age.
Victoria – digital:
The Age saw an average of 9,311 digital sales of its Monday to Friday edition and 9,369 for Saturday. The Sunday Age was 9,376.
SA:
News Limited’s Advertiser print sales held broadly steady, down 0.6% Monday to Saturday. However the Sunday Mail slipped by 4.5%.
Queensland:
News Limited’s Courier Mail was down 3.9% Monday to Friday and 8.2% on Saturdays. The Sunday Mail was down 6.4%.
WA:
SevenWestMedia’s The West Australian fell by 2.5% Monday to Friday and 1.8% on Saturdays.
News Limited’s Sunday Times was down 2.8%.
National:
Fairfax Media’s Australian Financial Review has slowed its weekeday decline with a fall of a relatively controlled 3% to 70,518. However the weekend edition fell by 11.8% to 69,057.
In a statement, the AFR said: “A three-pronged strategy to fix digital pricing, set the national agenda and revolutionise the customer experience is well underway at the Financial Review. While newspaper circulations are soft, and not helped by the tough conditions experienced in the financial sector, online engagement with the Financial Review is at an all time high and the launch of the App for iPad is only a few weeks away.”
Brett Clegg, CEO of the Financial Review Group said: “We set a new strategy for the Financial Review late last year which is quickly gaining traction. Our new online pricing has delivered thousands of new subscribers in only a few months, we’re breaking stories that have attracted global interest and we’ve actively reengaged with the business constituency to aggressively tackle the national agenda.”
Meanwhile News Limited’s The Australian was down 1.6% to 127,942, while The Weekend Australian was down 0.8% to 290,323.
Kim Williams, CEO of News Limited, said: “The ABC circulation figures released today are useful in providing guidance on how one important part of the market is performing – namely print media.
“The figures show that newspapers continue to reach more Australians than any other medium – more than 18 million newspapers are sold each week.
“However, the circulation figures critically miss an increasingly important part of how millions and millions of Australians consume media each day – namely digital media. Our brands have never reached as many people as they do today across print, tablet, web and mobile.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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No matter what anyone says about digital sales, the recent decline of Fairfax print circ is nothing short of shocking. It must be having a devastating effect on morale of journalists and sales people alike
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Canberra Times below 30,000 according to statistics on your rival, Mumbrella. (And a lot of those would be sitting in schools unread. Teachers I know claim they dispose of 30 plus copies a day.)
I realise Canberra is a one paper town, but at what point does a newspaper become unsustainable? Are they even profitable anymore?
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Media Fan, same with the Sydney Morning Herald here in Sydney. Many copies left unread and tossed in the recycling bin, in the school I work at. The university library up the road receives two copies a day, and only one copy is read by less than half a dozen people before it’s binned, the other archived.
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Fairfax’s rationale reminds me of the guy who had a leg amputated and claimed it was a good thing because he would only have to buy one shoe. While they tell themselves that — and while they leave the same failed editorial execs in place — a print franchise that could be re-focused as a daily magazine is left to wither.
I wonder how News Limited is feeling these days about firing Bruce Guthrie at the Herald Sun? Apart from the scandal and court case, what else do they have to show for it?
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OUCH! When is Jack Matthews going to do something?? Back bencher you are right, the same failed editorial hacks remain on…..You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
To be in a newspaper business now you need to put digital people in charge. They are promoting magazine eds and tired newspapet journos into roles they have no clue about. Watch the share price continue its slide.
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Matthews has to move fast. FAST. Install his best digital people back around him to shake it up and get his mojo back. The journos, editors and consultants are drowing him. Who knew.
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So print readership of the Sun-Herald has slipped by an amount equal to the entire readership of online organ the Global Daily, leaving it with only 10 times the readership?
Wow, dire for someone. Probably for the digi-only platform. Trends are only meaningful in context folks.
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*Global Mail
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Digital people don’t work in newspaper jobs…Fairfax have already proven that…as for the tired old journalist comment that’s garbage, journos can make the not so quantum leap from print to on-line…fundamental changes to the way people get their ‘news’ is at the core of the problem
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Normally when a business model swings from ad revenue to cover price, the cover price must rise accordingly. It hasn’t. A couple of bucks for a newspaper? Get over it. Them days are gone. People who want newspapers are going to have to pay for them or there won’t be any newspapers anymore.
That said, it might be that doubling the price turns away the last customers… if so that’s Darwinism. But at some point the industry has to try it, surely? Or will that be when Fairfax stops print and leaves News on its own? I guess the whole industry needs to club together and double newspaper prices all at once if it hope to survive.Can’t see that happening either. So my rambling bollocks hasn’t helped at all, really. Who’d be a newspaper publisher…
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Just to clarify what appears to be a misunderstanding of the new ABC Digital Rules.
While it is currently NOT compulsory to report the sales of digital copies, there is nothing in the rules to preclude a publisher from doing so now.
This decision was made to have optional reporting at inception so as to allow a transition period for the publishers to make the necessary changes to their internal – and external (e.g. iTunes store) – systems to develop the necessary reporting that meets the audit standards for sales of digital copies. The new digital rules were only approved on March 24 but with reporting back-dated to come into force from January 1, so that any publishers that were in a position to report were free to do so immediately if they chose to.
I look forward to the day in the not too distant future when all publishers freely and willingly report their digital sales … and hopefully some of the other voluntary reporting written into the rules such as sales of specific issues of publications.
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Moving fast for Jack means getting rid of the brain cell defficient people he has to put up with in his team both digital and print platforms…at 0.67$ share price Fairfax is still over estimated…
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Thanks for your concern, but Jack Matthews’ mojo is intact, present and accounted for. The Metro division has a clear strategy to focus on profitable circulation. We are working towards a sustainable level of print circ for each of our mastheads, reaching a highly engaged audience. This strategy was outlined to Metro staff last August, so everyone, from sales staff to journalists, fully understands what Jack’s doing and why he’s doing it. Our multi-platform approach is working, and we’re really pleased with the growth we’re seeing in the combined print and online audience of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Chelsea Wymer
National Trade Marketing Director – Fairfax Metro Media
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It is time to sweep out the dead wood and focus on a re-strategy.
Reading those figures in the story above does not please me at all, so I don’t know what you lot at Pyrmont are chuffed about.
The share price has not gone over 86 cents in the last 6 months and is presently in a 3 month spiral.
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Chelsea, I know it’s the company line, but how can you parrot it without looking at the people you have running your papers — or your company’s split personality.
Consider: In Melbourne, you have the top-rated radio station by a country mile, but there is no synergy with The Age. Why? Well, the people who produce the Age sneer at Middle Melbourne, which used to be what their display advertisers — when they had display advertisers, that is — wanted to reach. Politics aside, how dumb is it to focus an editorial product on 15% of the market, which is where the Age’s Green Left politics take it?
Now look at the faces the next time you have one of your in-house business meetings. What do you see? Overpaid bureaucrats who know they are working for a failing enterprise but are too scared to take a chance on anything different in case it jeopardises their paychecks. They have comfy seats and damn it! they aren’t moving for anyone, no matter how much the deck is tilting.
You know what you should do? Make The Age a tabloid, re-target middle-to-upper Melbourne and take on the increasingly moronic Herald Sun. I’ve never seen a better play than that. Rupert’s paywall and bum-kissing, back-stabbing editors (“oh, golly gosh, what will The Boss say?”) are stuffing his Oz operations.
So do something different. You know, like what Stutch is doing at the AFR and actual cater for your natural audience.
And one other thing: Revitalise you ad-sales team at the same time. You might actually be able to sell ads against an improved product.
Those tattooed lesbians in Glebs and Northcote’s sustainable Sorbent re-cyclers will have the receivers on the property within six months. You just have to realise that while those people fill the desks in your newsrooms, they are not a viable market.
Oh, and one last repetition. Hire editors who are hands-on leaders, nor overpaid office managers who don’t notice how bad the copy is these days.
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And, Chelsea, one other thing….
You lost Andrew Rule because he wanted, and reportedly had been promised, the London bureau. Except he didn’t get it because Fairfax is so politically correct, some numpty decided that, since there was someone with XY genes in the US, the London gig had to go to an XXer.
You lose a great writer. You lose great copy from England. Someone is going to get a nice Trophies-R-Us tin cup for the mantelpiece hailing their achievements in gender equity, but the inscription will need a footnote: “Awarded to someone who worked for a paper that no longer exists.”
For God’s sake, get smart.
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Hear hear, Back Bencher. Fairfax management and its sycophants (aka those who aspire to be in Fairfax management) seem to be the only people who believe the company is going along swimmingly. They are seriously deluded. Anyone truly at the coalface of Fairfax’s flagship papers will tell you that. As Back Bencher says, maybe their papers should try to appeal a broader audience instead of their precious so-called ‘AB’ demographic.
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Chelsea. Your papers are awful. It is the content I’m afraid and everyone knows it. Except Jack that is. Jack is a joke. All you have left is spin and that only works with your idiot board of directors and the muppet CEO.
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Fairfax still has the leading editorial in the country. Do we really want NEWS monopoloising all our media? Why the vitriolic abuse?
Digital people shouldn’t run editorial, they should educate. Where digital expertise is required is running profitable products, something Fairfax magazines and papers hasn’t focused on.
Don’t underestimate Jack Matthews.
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@Chelsea Wymer
Hi Chelsea
Former reader;
1) Auto-start videos.
2) Auto-refresh pages.
3) Poor layout.
4) Poorer writing.
5) Late coverage/No coverage.
6) Bad reporting.
7) Data-mining.
8) Endless self and cross promotion.
9) Inconsistent style and direction.
Cheers,
Former Reader
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Check out the latest readership figures for the newspapers mentioned in the article. Some absolute bloodletting going on there:
For example, Sunday Herald Scum has managed to alienate and extinguish around 14% of its entire readership in the year to March 2012. Far out.
The Saturday (carn)Age has managed a similar feat, shedding 13% of its readers in the same time period. The 1m+ audience it used to boast is a distant memory.
These significantly diminished audiences are big news because these two days are the single most profitable ones for their respective publishers.
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/.....2012/1678/
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@Back Bencher: if you think the Stutchbury approach is so smart then why did it not work for the Oz? (Perhaps because smart people do not like being yelled at by their news media?) And, speaking of the Revolution, Clegg must think people are totally stupid. His circulation is collapsing and he claims a rise in the afr.com audience (where the print subscriber gets to register for free). Circle the wagons Brettster, it’s going to get ugly from here on in.
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There is no doubt the Fairfax Newspapers need a massive shake out. New blood required throughout. Same old hacks moving about. Most have been with the business far, far too long. Some have never worked anywhere else.
Jack can do it, but I agree with the other comments, he needs to do it real fast. Fast.
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