News Limited’s weekday editions of The Australian and Fairfax’s weekday The Australian FinancialReview (AFR) suffered the biggest declines, with their weekend issues also falling.
The Australian Monday to Friday fell 6.85% from 425,000 to 396,000 compared to 2004 to the year ending September 2005; while AFR fell 6.38% from 282,000 to 264,000.
The Australian’s Saturday edition also fell 3.63% from 882,000 to 850,000, while AFR similarly fell 3.43% from 175,000 to 169,000.
The AFR Magazine had a disappointing result too, with a 10.25% fall from 283,000 to 254,000; though The Australian Magazine remained steady with a 1.55% rise.
Fairfax Business Media publisher and editor-in-chief, Michael Gill, says in spite the falls, AFR has continued to gain significant AB market share.
“[We] continue to question the ability of Roy Morgan Research to accurately measure our difficult-to-reach senior business executive audience,” Gill says.
“The launch of the Australian Business Readership study by IPSOS on November 24 will provide advertisers with a greater level of detail on the senior business professionals market and the [AFR] and BRW’s role within the sector.”
There were mixed results in Sydney, with News Limited’s The Daily Telegraph successfully rising 9.58% from 919,000 to 1,007,000 on Saturdays, and its weekday edition also rising slightly by 2.06%.
Fairfax’s The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), however, experienced minor falls in all its editions, which come in the wake of widespread redundancies being made across its Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan papers.
The SMH’s Monday to Friday edition fell 2.40%, while its Saturday edition fell 4.29%. The Good Weekend also fell 3.06% from 1,831,000 to 1,775,000.
However, The Sydney Magazine continues to excel, rising 22.12% from 312,000 to 318,000.
In Melbourne, readership was down slightly across all the major papers, with Fairfax’s The Age Monday to Friday falling 2.90% from 725,000 to 704,000, and falling 1.01% on Saturday.
Fairfax editor-in-chief, metropolitan, regional and community newspapers, Mark Scott, says the same issues that affected circulation this year hit readership, with a weak economy and a softening real estate and employment market.
“We have several initiatives to strengthen sales and marketing and improve our publications. We have new editorial leadership at the SMH and improvements in key sections at The Age and the SMH,” Scott says.
Meanwhile, News Limited’s Herald Sun also fell—2.39% during the week and 2.36% on Saturday.
Its commuter paper MX, however, remained as buoyant as ever with a 9.49% increase from 137,000 to 150,000.
News Limited’s Queensland paperThe Courier-Mail experienced a 2.58% fall during the week, and a 4.32% fall on Saturday, with the recent launch of its inserted weekend magazine, Q Weekend, no doubt hoping to bolster interest.
News Limited advertising director, Ray Atkinson, says readership research in Victoria and Queensland “is a problem and we’ve also raised a query with Roy Morgan Research over The Courier-Mail and theTownsville Bulletin in particular whose readership is not reflecting other key performance measures”.
West Australian Newspapers’ The West Australian experienced little change, but its insert fell 6.31% from 888,000 to 832,000.
