The latest set of figures from the Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) showed that 2.94m people or 82% of the adult population regularly read a newspaper either on a daily or weekly basis. While this compares with 85.9% at the end of June 2010, the decline mirrors a trend that is evident in pretty much every other mature newspaper market in the world.
The JNRS, which is carried out by Millward Brown Lansdowne covers the 12 month period up until the end of June 2011.
“There’s no evidence that people are giving up reading newspapers,” says Frank Cullen chief executive of the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI). “If there’s a slight dip in the readership figures it’s mainly down to economic issues, in particular the fact that there are now fewer people in work and therefore fewer newspapers being shared around the workplace.” He goes on to add that, “the latest JNRS is actually very encouraging, with 64% of people saying they are completely loyal to their newspaper and would not change.
“Cullen points out that the latest figures also show that 75% of all students and 77% of 15-24 year olds regularly read a newspaper. “Like in other countries, our young people source their news and information from a variety of media including the internet, social media and television. Unlike most other countries, however, our young people are also extremely enthusiastic readers – that’s a positive reflection on our society and it’s something we can be very happy with. We have a range of Newspapers in Education initiatives going on, and in that context the latest JNRS is very encouraging.
In the daily market, all the main papers shed readers during the period under review with the exception of the Irish Daily Mirror which saw a 1.5% increase in its daily readers to finish on 207,000.
The Irish Independent, remained the most widely read daily newspaper with a readership of 500,000, a decline of around 10.7% on the comparable figure in 2010. It was followed by the Irish Daily Star on 372,000 while The Irish Times, meanwhile, weighed in with an average readership figure of 324,000, a drop of around 9.7% on the previous period.
The JNRS figures also show that the most widely read newspaper in the country continued to be the Sunday Independent with 971,000 readers. It was followed by its IN&M stablemate the Sunday World on 807,000. With 539,000 readers at the end of June, the now defunct Irish News of the World demonstrated that there’s readership gains to be made by the other newspapers over the next six months.
Elsewhere in the Sunday market, which has seen the departure of the Irish Star on Sunday and the Sunday Tribune since the last book, the Irish Mail on Sunday weighed in with 330,000 readers while the Sunday Times. The only Sunday title to record growth during the period was the Irish Sunday Mirror which added 13,000 readers to finish at 159,000.
More in dept figures on the JNRS will be made available to clients in the near future.
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