ABCs: Newspaper print decline continues
Fairfax Media’s Sydney Sunday paper The Sun-Herald was again the biggest faller in the latest set of newspaper print numbers, with its rate of decline increasing since the last set of audited numbers were released.
The newspaper saw a drop of 21.3% in the quarter from July to September compared to the same period a year before. This was a slight increase on the 18.66% drop when the previous audited numbers came out three months ago.
In the new set of numbers, not a single metro Sunday paper was in positive print territory.
In Sydney, the Sun Herald fell from 410,407 to 322,959.
Its sister Melbourne title The Sunday Age fell by 15.4% to 193,545.
At the other end of the Sunday table, News Limited’s The Sunday Telegraph delivered the best result, just staying above 600,000 after declining by 1%.
In the daily battle, The Monday to Friday edition of the Age was the worst performer, dropping 16.9%
The drops in Fairfax’s numbers did not come as a surprise – coinciding with a price rise and rethink on distribution strategy for unprofitable copies.
News Limited CEO Kim Williams said: “Notwithstanding the fact we raised our cover price across four major metro titles this quarter, print circulation numbers have held up well in the current climate.”
Fairfax Media
Looks like afr aggregate of paid sales has fallen from about 83000 to 75000. In fact both print and digital paid uniques are tanking??
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Just a thought bubble: Is a contributing reason behind the decline, just a reality check? With some of the dodgy circulation figures of the past coming home to roost?
With the current economic climate, publishers are adjusting to printing more realsitic numbers which reflect a more creditiable readership figure. Sorry! But the “Rivers of Gold” had to slow some time!
Long live newspapers!
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We religiously brought the Sun-Herald in our household (two men), now there is nothing in it. The magazine is a woman’s magazine, edited, written, designed, all for women. I travel on the train during the week and often see women reading the magazine but NEVER men reading it. The stories don’t appeal to men, the layout doesn’t appeal to men and the advertising $6000 handbags, $400 shoes doesn’t appeal to men, the rare advertising suitable for men (generally around fathers day) is so out of touch with the average male reader that it is clearly aimed at the women readership. Where we would once go out in the pouring rain to get a copy for Sunday reading we no longer even go to get it. If you drilled down into lost readership you could pretty much see the majority of those lost would be males.
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PS and you could pretty safely lay a large bet on it that the cover of the magazine in the Sun-Herald would feature a women face (who has yet to contribute to society) ! Again generally no interest to men (other than a one second look).
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