Newspapers: Readership declines less than dollars as freesheets polarise states

By Adnews | 7 November 2013
 

Freesheets are attracting weekday eyeballs in Sydney but not in Melbourne, latest newspaper readership numbers from Roy Morgan suggest. Otherwise most major papers continued to lose readers but at a slower rate then they have been losing dollars.

Commuter freesheet MX tops the chart in terms of growth for the year to September in New South Wales (up 27.2%) yet brings up the rear in Victoria (down 20.6%).

All of the major newspapers shed readers, according to the data, although the declines in the main were less steep than the fall off in newspaper ad revenues as booked by media agencies, which fell away around a quarter over the same period, according to SMI data.

The West Australian held up best (-0.8% to 504,000), followed by the Daily Telegraph (-4.5% to 483,000). The largest of Australia's dailies, the Herald Sun, dipped -5.3% to 1,059,000 readers. The Age, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald all suffered double digit declines with the steepest at the SMH (-13.4%).

The Australian Financial Review increased weekday readership by 4.4% to 239,000, Roy Morgan's data suggests. Its Saturday readership also increased marginally to 148,000.

Elsewhere Saturday newspapers readerships largely declined. Of the major titles, The Sydney Morning Herald lost most readers (down 12.8% to 784,000). The Weekend Australian held up best, according to the data, dipping 1.9% to 769,000.

Bar the Sunday Territorian, readerships across all Sunday newspapers declined.

Newspaper insert magazines (NIMs) followed the same trend, although those surveyed suggested an pick up in readership for the Financial Review Magazine of 21.5% year on year.

All other NIMs declined. The News Corp's Wish magazine lost the most readers (-27.9%), the data suggested, Fairfax's Good Weekend held up best (-1.5% to 1,334,000).

Click on the table below to download all the Roy Morgan newspaper readership data.

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