Irish Examiner readership soars by 17%

THE Irish Examiner has confirmed its position as Ireland’s most dynamic newspaper, adding thousands of daily readers over the past year while its competitors lost thousands.

The independently audited Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) figures show that this newspaper gained 36,000 extra readers a day between June 2004 and June 2005.

In contrast, the Irish Independent lost 27,000 daily readers and the Irish Times 12,000 in the same period.

The year-on-year JNRS, conducted by Lansdowne Market Research, is regarded as the benchmark on newspaper readership used by the Irish advertising industry.

The sharp rise in Irish Examiner readership is across all age groups and underlines consistent growth over the past three years, increasing from 206,000 in 2003 to 243,000 today.

The JNRS results follow last week's survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) which showed that, alone among the broadsheets, this newspaper enjoyed a significant increase in actively purchased newspaper sales, while the Irish Independent, and to a lesser extent the Irish Times, increased their bulk sales (copies sold at a discount to hotels and other outlets and often given away free of charge).

Readership measures the number of people who have read a newspaper, while circulation is purely a measure of the number of people buying a publication.

More than 243,000 people now read the Irish Examiner every day, a substantial 17.4% increase on last year's results. In contrast over the same period, the Irish Independent lost 4.4% of its readers while The Irish Times is down 3.5%.

No other Irish daily newspaper has come close in attracting new readers.

In the red top tabloid segment of the market, the Star lost 30,000 (6.6%) of its readership, the Mirror lost 26,000 (10.9%), the Sun lost 24,000 (8.1%), and the Evening Herald lost a massive 43,000 readers (12%).

Commenting on the JNRS data, Irish Examiner chief executive Tom Murphy said the figures were a great achievement, and were the result of a great team effort across all departments in the company.

"This is a great result, coming on the back of a very positive circulation increase and buoyant advertising revenues across all sectors," he said.

The JNRS figures show that a remarkable eight out of every 10 of our readers read no other daily newspaper. The Irish Examiner continues to have the highest sole readership of any national newspaper, broadsheet or tabloid. This "solus" readership statistic is prized by advertisers who can feel confident of hitting their target market in a newspaper with such a loyal readership.

The Irish Examiner's award winning team produces a daily paper which appeals to a wide audience and continues to attract younger readers across all age categories. In the high-spending 25 to 44 year old bracket, it has added an extra 7,000 readers over the period under review. And in the key recruitment age group (15 to 24 year olds), it has attracted an additional 8,000 readers.

On top of that, the Irish Examiner has succeeded in growing its ABC 1 readership the much treasured target for advertisers by 22,000, while The Irish Times lost 23,000 (8%) in the same category and the Irish Independent dropped 14,000 readers (4.5%).

The newspaper's dominance of the affluent Munster market remains as strong as ever, with 110,000 more readers in the province than the Independent and 183,000 more than the Times.

Overall, 25% of newspaper readers in Munster read the Irish Examiner every day.

Less than one-in-20 Munster-based newspaper readers read the Irish Times (4.7%), and just over one reader-in-10 (12.6%) reads the Irish Independent.

In the Sunday newspaper market, the Sunday Business Post gained an additional 10,000 readers, while the Sunday Independent lost 37,000. Other winners in that market were the Sunday Times, which gained 50,000 readers, and the Sunday Tribune, which added an extra 17,000.