There is no good news in the capital city daily newspaper circulation numbers just released.
The decline is such that there must be a live discussion as when one or more of the titles ceases to be printed daily. Circulation of The Age declined 18.3% down to 106,838 copies. This is around 30,000 copies lower than the circulation of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer a respected broadsheet from Seattle WA, USA when it ceased being printed.
What’s worse for The Age is that there is no dramatic uptake in digital editions – the decline in print is not due to migration.
News Corp has plenty of bad news too with the Herald Sun down 7.9% Monday to Friday.
Shame on newspaper publishers for continuing to ignore opportunities for working with retail newsagents to grow over the counter single copy sales. Worse still, shame on newspaper publishers for not even having a current database of retail newsagents with home they could work on such a project.
There is no good news in the latest newspaper circulation results. The numbers remind newsagents of the need to proactively engage with other traffic generators to build the viability of their businesses.
Do I think we can grow newspaper sales? Yes!
Mark, After the contempt News has shown to newsagents of late I will now be moving my papers to the back of my shop and will replace them with far more profitable lines in the front.It seems to work well for woollies etc, putting their milk and bread to the rear thereby forcing people past the majority of their other products. My newspaper sales have halved in the last ten years and when I ask my customers who have stopped buying papers as to why, the majority of them tell me they do not see value for money any more. I thought it must be something I was doing or the digital era was biting into sales. WRONG!! People are getting sick of the crap they are dishing up.People are thinking more now.People are concerned about the quality of journalism.People want value for money and THEY JUST ARE NOT GETTING IT.You can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig and it does not matter how well we present it or how nicely it is displayed or advertised CRAP just does not sell.!!
Ken I understand wha you are saying. My papers are in the back third of the shop. Newsagents were told what to do for years at a significant financial cost to us and we can see now that was a waste of money.
Our Newspapers are about one third back in the shop and we have been accused by newscorp of being disrespectful to the newspapers, poor things!. Newscorp don’t respect their own product, or Newsagents so we lose no sleep over that.
Do we think we can grow newspapers? Why bother. We have numerous suppliers who want their product in our shops, with a better GP, and are grateful to us to give them the opportunity. Newspapers make no profit, have little upselling and will continue to decline, so there is no point in prolonging the existence of what is essentially an agency sale with low GP (news AGENCY).
When the time comes that newspaper publishers stop print, we will only know the morning that we turn up for work and there are no newspapers there to put on the shelf.
What can they put in a newspaper that is not widely available, mostly free, on the Internet. Desktop, laptop, I-Pad or mobile phone, keeping up to date with the latest news is easy. I think it’s too late for engagement with publishers, the figures show people have moved on from print. As the print model only really works on volume the outlook for all print is terminal.
Why would I read the crap the major newspapers print when I could visit the ABC news website (either on my PC or my phone) and get better quality news at zero cost?
Well why would you want to visit the ABC website and read their crap Jonathon, I wish they would stop wasting our money and start paying their way…
By the way digital mags are getting churned AWW declined 25.3 % .. yep only 7,171 sales/month. but I won’t go on as you can read more about it if you buy the paper Jonathan . “that rag the Australian”
ABC news at zero cost? I’m sorry Jonathon but I’m pretty sure we’re all paying for that. Not only are we all paying for it but while the commercial news outlets are all cutting their costs to the bone the luvvies are up in arms at the suggestion they could be a bit more efficient and possibly save us all some money.
One thing you never seem to address is CONTENT. Although all newspapers are facing challenges, some are suffering more. E.g. Fairfax. We live in an age where everyone beats their chest about diversity. The Age severely lacks diversity from an Editorial and Journalistic viewpoint. The is nothing in the paper worth reading for a large section of the community. Then we add in the The Saturday Paper which is preaching to same small segment of the community.
John I do comment occasionally but not often as this blog is not about content. My view is that all daily newspapers in Australia today let us down. The best for the money and consistency of focus on its mission is The Australian Financial Review.