AFR has toughest newspaper audit round
Metro newspapers have continued their steady decline, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The biggest moves downward for the quarter came from three Fairfax titles, with the Mon-Fri editions of the Australian Financial Review down by more than 8% on the previous 12 months to 81,845, Sydney’s Sun-Herald down by 4.5% to 461,509 and the Saturday edition of Melbourne’s The Age down 3.3% to 291,600. However, none of the major Australian papers have seen circulation figures plummet in the way they have in other parts of the world.
A rare growth story came from the Saturday edition of News Ltd’s Daily Telegraph in Sydney, up 3% to 337,000.
Sister title The Sunday Telegraph remains Australia’s biggest selling newspaper with a sale of 657,424, down 0.8% on 12 months ago.
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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They might not be as large as the UK (note that the US papers haven’t seen huge circulation drops on average), but it’s far from growing or steady as certain news paper chiefs in Australia would like us to believe
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I think it is delusional to think that newspapers will die. I think they will revolutionize their respective business models – quality, in-depth content, proper online websites – rather than just sit and die. I for one would be happy to subscribe to newspapers that offered me something meaningful.
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If someone with money, brains and balls wanted to have a little flutter, they might consider bringing out a free broadsheet distributed strategically to A &B readers and directly targeting the Age and its advertising base. It would be tied to a genuinely innovative Web effort, with lots of video and audio on demand. Thinly staffed, but with smart people, its chief appeal would be the content, which would surrender the covering of breaking news to the wire services, radio and TV in order to concentrate on good, incisive, contentious writing, reporting and punditry.
Done properly,. the Age would have no choice but to sue for peace.
Sadly, there is not enough change down the back of my sofa to kick this thing off, but for anyone with spare coin, it could well be a winner.
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Long thought about this and it’s a good idea lobsterman. What would be even better is a national daily financial/business type paper that was tabloid and given away free like MX. It would kill the AFR.
Problem is printing. The only people in Australia with the printing capacity is basically Fairfax and News…….
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Me too Andrew – I would love news that was well crafted, insightful and interesting rather than the pap we get served each day.
Leave the “Brad leaves Angelina” type stories for the trashy mags and give me something better to think about.
Lobsterman – you are on to a winner there. Anyone know who the recent Lotto winners were?
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