Newspaper circulation holds up

Australian newspaper sales posted a small decline in the December 2009 quarter but remained resilient in the face of a patchy economy, skittish consumer behaviour and rising interest rates in the last three months of the year.

Figures released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show sales of Monday to Sunday metropolitan daily newspapers were down by a modest 1.6% in the three months ending December 31, 2009, compared with the previous corresponding period.

Significantly, today’s ABC figures have also revealed a remarkably strong performance by Australia’s three biggest broadsheet newspapers, The Age, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald, in the past decade.

In the 10 years to the end of December last year, the combined circulation of these newspapers was almost unchanged, dipping by a negligible 0.5%.

According to The Newspaper Works CEO Tony Hale, not only does this result defy overseas circulation trends during the “noughties”, it also shows that the internet’s ascendancy as a news channel over the decade has barely impacted on sales of quality Australian printed mastheads.

“In the past decade, broadsheet publishers have continued to invest in production facilities, quality journalism, newspaper inserted magazines, new sections and a raft of other initiatives in order to stay relevant to readers and give them what they want,” Hale said.

“As a result, Australians are still buying these printed broadsheets in virtually the same numbers as 10 years ago, which is remarkable in light of the changing media landscape and at a time when the doomsayers have been predicting the demise of newspapers thanks to the rise of the internet.”

Hale said that far from debilitating these newspapers’ printed editions, the online medium had added an entirely new dimension to them during this period, with latest figures to December 2009 showing approximately 9 million unique browsers per month on the websites of the three biggest broadsheets*** - off a zero base in 1999.

Australian newspapers overall are also continuing to buck international circulation trends.

In Australia, sales of Monday to Saturday national, metropolitan and regional newspapers fell by 1.8% in the last quarter of 2009. By contrast, in the US market, weekday newspaper sales in the six months from April to September 2009 (the latest available figures) dropped by 10.6%.*

The circulation trend in the UK is also continuing downwards, with national daily newspaper sales for the period July to December 2009 falling by 3.1%.**

Hale said the latest Australian circulation figures were especially encouraging in the light of uncertain economic conditions, with consumers facing the possibility of a string of interest rate rises.

“Every week, Australians are still buying 15.2 million metropolitan newspapers – this is a phenomenal number in a country with a population as relatively small as ours,” Hale said.

“For readers, Australian newspapers are their most trustworthy news medium, while for advertisers, newspapers continue to effectively deliver audiences in extremely large numbers,” Hale said.

Sources:

* Audit Bureau of Circulations (US), circulation of newspapers for the six months to September 30, 2009
** Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK), circulation of newspapers for July to December 2009
***Nielsen Media online report for three months ending December 31 2009 show an average combined total of 9.1 million UBs per month across the websites of the three biggest broadsheets’ websites