IBISWorld: Newsagencies are turning to non-traditional sources of revenue

On a forum managed by the ANF, a copy of the IBISWorld Industry report OD5495 Newsagencies in Australia January 2015 has been published.

This report is copyright protected as outlined on their website and costs $995.00 to purchase from IBISWorld. I suspect IBISWorld management would like to know from the ANF about the source of the report and why it s forum has been used to distribute the report.

While I am not publishing the copy of the report leaked to me, I will comment on some data points as they do not ring true to me.

The report claims on page 3 there are 2,470 businesses in the newsagency channel. I think this number understates the facts by around 1,000 businesses. It also disagrees with the various numbers of newsagencies put about by representatives of the ANF.

In 2013 I received an email from the head of communications for the ANF seeking data for the IBISWorld report being collated at that time. That correspondence leaves me wondering if data for this latest report was provided by the ANF.

The report claims newsagency marketing group membership:

• Newspower: 21.8% or 438 locations.
• Nextra: 11.4% or 281 locations.
• newsXpress: 5.2% or 128 locations.
• The Lucky Charm: 1.5% or 37 locations.

On page 27 of the report the author claims a total of 3,500 establishments and 2,470 enterprises. Even using this data the marketing group membership numbers feel wrong:

• Newspower: 21.8% or 763 locations. The ANF CEO told me last year it was 650.
• Nextra: 11.4% or 413 locations. The Nextra website says the group has 295 outlets.
• newsXpress: 5.2% or 182 locations.
• The Lucky Charm: 1.5% or 52 locations.

I can only speak for newsXpress, the group for which I have accurate data. In January this year newsXpress had 185 members. Today it has considerably more than this. I encourage representatives of Nextra, Newspower and The Lucky Charm to correct the record.