Crikey is reporting that newspaper sales across Australia are in a slump.
The latest circulation figures for the six months to December make very depressing reading for Fairfax and News Ltd, the latter however would take some comfort from the offer-driven rise in the Monday to Friday sales of The Australian and small increases in the Herald Sun (Monday to Friday and the Sunday edition).
The Crikey article has a lot more detail including the breakdown of the state papers. Here in Western Australia the figures aren’t as worrying for the publishers as other states. In Perth the West Australian weekday paper rose 1.3% but the Saturday edition fell 0.8%. Sales of the rival Sunday Times rose 0.6% in Perth.
Are we tired of buying newspapers? Has the internet started to bite? I know that it’s easier than ever to stay up to date with breaking stories on-line. Instead of a report written and printed the night before, I know that the internet can provide fresh content, with photos, almsot as the story is breaking.
The only medium that beats that kind of coverage is radio.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Newspaper sales slump? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.
there’s still nothing like leafing through a fresh weekend paper over a long breakfast and bottomless coffee
but Mon-Fri give me news.com.au any day
I’ve got to admit that I do enjoy the weekend papers.
I’m not sure how it is over there, but were it not for the local news, I’d give up on our newspaper. National and international news comes to me much faster via my bloglines subscriptions. And it’s frustrating to see the exact same AP newswire story that I’ve read yesterday showing up in my morning paper. My weekend paper is mostly fluff and trivia. Most of it goes unread.