Newspaper sales in Ireland appear to be falling slightly faster than in the UK. According to the latest set of ABC figures for the island of Ireland, overall circulation decreased in the second half of 2014 by more than 7% compared to the same six months the year before.
Interestingly, papers published in the UK but sold in Ireland, suffered larger falls than the home-produced titles, which is something of a turn-around in the fortunes of the Irish press.
Even so, there is little for Ireland’s publishers to celebrate as far as print sales are concerned with year-on-year dips for the three national titles.
Sales of the Irish Times fell 6.3% (to 76,882); the Irish Independent fell 4.1% (to 112,502); and the Irish Examiner was down by 7% (to 34,424).
The main city titles, Dublin’s Herald and Cork’s Evening Echo registered substantial falls. The former lost 11.8% of its circulation, with sales dipping below the 50,000 mark, and the latter lost 7.4% to sell just 13,110 copies.
Among the daily tabloids, the Irish Daily Mail fell 10% (to 44,117); the Irish Daily Mirror was down 10.2% (to 46,870); the Irish Sun dropped 7% (to 59,119); and the Irish Daily Star was down by 9.5% (to 53,245).
On Sundays, the Sunday Independent continues to dominate the market despite a 4.5% year-on-year fall, taking sales down to 219,007. By contrast, the Irish edition of the Sunday Times lost 7% of its sale, recording a total of 86,059.
The Sunday Business Post managed to keep its loss down to just 3.2%, giving it a regular weekly sale of 33,233.
And the red-top Sunday World lost 9% of its sale over the period, dropping to 189,562.
North of the border, the Belfast Telegraph lost 3.4% of its sale, to total 45,905.
Sources: ABC/Irish Times/Irish Independent
