Australian newspaper sales decline began two decades ago
Despite claims that newspaper sales in Australia are bucking the international trend and remaining stable, new analysis suggests that compared to the country’s growing population, sales have dropped significantly.
The examination of data was carried out by the Media Alliance ahead of this week’s Walkley Media Conference.
The organisation combined Audit Bureau of Circulation data with Australian Bureau of Statistics population numbers to develop an approximate measure of metro and national newspaper sales per head of the population over the last two decades.
And although there is margin for error as the methodology on the collection of the circulation data has changed slightly, the trend has been downwards, with sales of nearly 160 newspapers per 1000 population in 1991, falling to less than 110 per 1000.
The population has grown by about a quarter in that time to more than 22m, while newspaper sales have fallen slightly.
Tomorrow sees the latest set of ABC newspaper circulation data released. The last set saw declines virtually across the board.
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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Finally! A picture showing us what we all knew was the case. What will Newspaper Works have to say about this?
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We’ll find out tomorrow, Fibbest.
I for one salute Newspaper Works’ unflinching creativity in finding something positive to say each time a new set of numbers come out.
My bet for tomorrow: “We’re through the worst”. Indeed, if they work that exact phrase into tomorrow’s press release, I’ll give them 50,000 ad impressions as a consolation prize.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Excellent news – Australian newspapers aren’t fit for cleaning ones fundament, the sooner they disappear the better
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I’m sure you’ll get the same picture if you plotted TV, Mags etc over an 18yr period. And in 18yrs time, even the most popular social sites will show the same trend (if they’re not replaced by the next big thing sooner). But at the moment, newspapers still delivers that mass number, and in one hit, and still packs a punch.
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Not surprised by the figures
Revenue is what is really important … And from knowledge this has risen substantially in the same period.
It’s not all about big user/reader numbers … You need to make money for those users to be worth the effort.
curious to see how those numbers stack up against international comparisons. I was under the impression the australian population was oversupplied for newspapers per capita.
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Am I the only one worried that people don’t want to read newspapers any more? Whatever you think of them, they put governments in and out of power, uncover corruption, set social agendas, foil criminals, catch pedophiles, etc, etc, etc.
Australia without a good, competent, unbiased print media is a worrying place indeed. Or do I just get all my news and current affairs from Facebook and ACA?
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Anyone wanting to understand the decline of newspapers in Australia should read the transcript of John Hartigan and Peter Blunden’s testimony in the Guthrie wrongful dismissal case. It’s rivetting stuff, especially the judge’s comments on that pair’s lack of credibility as witnesses.
These are the geniuses runing newspapers into the ground.
The Catalano debacle across town at Fairfax indicates stupidity is a prerequisite for a senior newspaper position.
Dumb generals lose big battles. It’s that simple.
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If newspapers die Alan Jones and everyone else on talkback radio will have nothing to say in the morning.
In fact Jones might have to freestyle, which is something I would actually pay money to hear.
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The idea of a strong newspaper industry based on solid unbiased journalism and a desire for investigative excellence is very appealing. Trouble is you can count those publications on the fingers of one hand and none of them is Australian.
They are largely womens magazine, except where they are taking a supremely biased view of electoral matters, or demonising the poor – so they are redundant and need to die nice and quickly.
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One wonders how much of the population growth since 1991 were immigrants from a non-English speaking background…
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readership declines, ad rates increase an average 4%. Something is not right here!
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@ Keith, I support your concern for the fact we need newspapers for our society to function. Those who don’t get it, don’t get that without newspapers they’ll have even less of an idea about the world around them than they know now – which granted obviously isn’t much. Take some solitude in that people do want to read newspapers – and they do – millions of people every day.
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I agree with Keith and Carrob. People are so quick to bag newspapers and I have no idea why. The fact is that they set the agenda for every other media outlet that reports on the news. We need a strong newspaper industry.
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Not sure if this is as clear-cut as you make it out to be. Do we have the same number of newspapers available as we did back in ’01? What about communities? And hasn’t the ABC changed it’s methodology over that time period so that they are no longer counting as many copies of the published mastheads?
Newspapers claim stability because they are using website visitation data for their mastheads (both for readership and circ), their claim is that their products are “transforming not disappearing”. The story above is only part of the picture.
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The dumbest comment of all from “bored” (the sooner newspapers disappear the better). Sounds good – no newspapers, no journalists producing meaningful copy, no-one uncovering scandals, rorts or politics gong wrong; nobody reporting sport, the arts – so where will the www get its news? The state? PR companies?
Hey! Why not? works well in China
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we need news. Is that the same thing as needing newspapers?
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We do need news. And newspapers have credibility. Unless like most 14 year olds, we start accepting Wikipedia and Google as “research” tools….
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@biasedbuthonest – I think that is a slight on 14 year olds and also happily ignoring the fact that most journo’s accept Google and Wikipedia as research tools.
Being a foreigner on these fairs shores also leads me to question if @wake up has read an Australian newspaper. I wouldn’t say the newspapers open up the world around them past Australian shores.
Of course we need Journalism and the benefits of that are obvious. The issue seems to be that Newspapers constantly feel the need to claim to be growing and becoming more popular when that is not the case. As Dr Jeffrey Cole from the Center for the Digital Future puts it “every time a newspaper reader dies, there is no one to replace them”.
It’s interesting that people think that just because Journalism happens online it can’t be trusted – simply not true.
Newspapers becoming less popular – true. It’s just a fact. It may be sad but doesn’t mean journalism will die
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You don’t need to read a paper to get good news. I get plenty of good news from suppliers…ABC radio (well, the J’s!). ….BBC.com….. credible updates for what’s going on in the world! Again, my sample size of one…but sticking with it 😉
Some people will always still like to read a paper though. It will be a long time before we see the death of them. There’s no doubting the decline in numbers though, it will have a greater impact on ad units sold ultimately. Not on delivering news.
I must say though there’s something in what “Ripped Off” says…decreasing readership and increasing ad costs…hmmm!
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Re lower readership and higher ad rates … Last time I checked no one was forcing marketers to advertise so they’re paying what they believe they need to to be in the medium.
More power to the news companies for making higher yields over time. Either they’re doing something right and adding value … Or those advertising in print are idiots. I’d say it’s the former.
Bashing the newspaper industry is boring and obvious.
Not wanting to let any facts get in the way of any opinions, I’d still like to toss the following into the ring:
* Australians still buy 20m newspapers a week – over one per person who can read. if anyone has any overseas equivalents I’d love to see the data. Of course that number does not include free copies (mX etc), communities and ethnic press that are not ABC audited.
* The above figure IS audited. Someone mentioned the rule changes. I defy anyone to look at the graph and work out when they started – there is no ‘step-change’ in the graph. The rules re-write “tightened the rules up” for the current competitive marketplace and ensured that “Average Nett Paid Sales” were exactly that. I was on the Committee that re-wrote the rules and I can’t pick the change.
* I would dearly love to see the same rigour applied to the online world – yes the online world that can unashamedly sell based on ‘monthly UBs’ that aggregate to over 85m unique users a month … now THAT is growth!
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Peter – bored here, obviously I am dealing with a superior mind (yours), but if you think that any of the things you claim the newspapers are delivering are a) useful, or b) done in any volume then I would like to suggest that you might just have been brainwashed….by those news outlets you seem to love (or work for?).
The ‘scandals’, ‘rorts’ and ‘gone wrongs’ are usually nothing like that at all, but beat ups to support the editors/owners political point of view, and the news of the last half century has been the stories they didn’t publish, because they did not suit the required agenda.
Do we need more Watergates? Sure, but we never seem to get them, and if we do then why the need to deliver them through newspapers? I can’t even find the regular news these days for the property market spruiking, the latest swimwear designs from Myer or the pointless ramblings of the columnists. Or is that the hard hitting news you were referring to?
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John, does that figure include subscriptions?
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This is a (belated) reply to Doubtful and a necesasry explanation of the source of the data and the methodology we used to put the time series together.
First, you are absolutely right about the Audit Bureau time series. What we have used is a customised set of data put together for us by their researchers to be used in a report we are working on for release later this year.
The Audit Bureau changed its method of collecting data in 2006, going from six-monthly audit periods to three monthly. To get this time series we have essentially cobbled together two slightly different sets of data (although it’s not as if we are trying to compare apples and oranges – perhaps oranges and tangerines, to mangle a metaphor).
As the graph makes clear we took a set of data with national and metro papers only. You are right, there are no regional or community newspapers in this mix. However the ABC has tried as far as is possible to include all papers that were audited during the period – various publications stopped printing during the 20 years from 1991-2010.
The total paid sales figure was reached by adding together average Monday-Friday sales multiplied by 5 plus sales of Saturday and Sunday papers and dividing the total by 7 to reach an average daily figure for metro and national papers.
We then used ABS population numbers to get paid sales per 1000 people.
So the graph above is meant to be indicative of a trend and I hope this comment has made that a little clearer.
We’re compiling the second of our Future of Journalism reports even as I write this. If you want to have a look at the first report, from November 2008, you can download it here: http://www.alliance.org.au/doc....._final.pdf
Cheers,
Jonathan Este
Director of Communications
Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
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bored again…..you are spot on with your comment on what masquerades as real news in most newspapers. The challenge for any newspaper today is deliver information that readers were previously unaware of, in other words to ‘break’ new stories. If they can’t or don’t do that why should anybody buy a copy. Too often newspapers choose to be a ‘newspaper of record’ simply commenting on events after they have occurred. Why, because it is safe and easy, it is also , as bored has said, BORING, that is why people are voting with their feet and walking away.
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Why is my comments waiting to be moderated? I don’t think it’s rude?
Just want to understand if that figure John Grono is quoting includes subscriptions?
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Hi Fibbest,
Your comments go into pre-moderation because somebody based at your IP addres has previously made a comment which contravened our comment policy. Whre somebody uses abusive terms, I then move their IP address into a pre-moderation filter in the future. That can take slightly longer for a comment to go live.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
interesting!
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Fibbest … yes it does. It is based on ANPS (Average Nett Paid Sales), so it includes both news-stand and subscription sales – but they are not broken out separately due to commerical sensitivity.
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