Readership grows in newspapers
The readership of daily newspapers in Ireland is increasing but, despite fierce competition, the Irish Examiner continues to outperform the Irish Independent and the Irish Times in the key, affluent Munster market.
The paper also made gains in Dublin and the important youth and AB consumer demographic.
The Irish Examiner's dominance in Munster is unparalleled in the daily newspaper market, with 76,000 more readers than the Irish Independent and 153,000 more than the Irish Times.
Compared to the last JNRS figures in December 2003, the Irish Examiner has an average daily readership of 207,000 people, with more young readers turning to the paper as their daily read.
An additional 4,000 people in the 19 to 24-year-old category read the newspaper every day during the period under review.
Irish Examiner editor Tim Vaughan said: "We are privileged to have a very loyal readership base, with an amazing eight out of 10 Irish Examiner readers feeling no need to read any other paper on a daily basis whereas almost a third of Irish Times and Irish Independent readers require an extra paper to fulfil their needs every day.
"Our readers trust us to keep them informed on all events and topics of importance. They know they will not get a better or more complete package of news, sports, business, arts or entertainment coverage from any of our competitors," said Mr Vaughan.
The Irish Examiner's advertising manager Aidan Forde said the addition of 6,000 extra readers in the key AB consumer demographic and 4,000 extra young adults to the newspaper's readership made the Irish Examiner an even better medium for advertisers.
"Our advertisers will be particularly glad to see that our solus readership (readers who read no other daily paper) is higher than any other paper in the market they know with confidence that they will reach their target market when they advertise with us," said Mr Forde.
More than three million adults read a newspaper in a typical week, the JNRS figures show.
The huge increase applies across the board, with readership exceeding 90% across all demographic groups, including teenagers.
"It's a huge boost for the industry," said the coordinating director of the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) Frank Cullen.
"One of the great strengths of a newspaper is that it requires you to make a choice. Every day thousands of people go out, put their hand in their pocket and pay cash for their favourite newspaper. No other medium inspires that sort of positive choice," said Mr Cullen.
Both the Irish Independent and the Irish Times have benefited from the overall growth in the industry, with the greatest gains for both the Dublin dailies coming, predictably enough, in Leinster.
The introduction of the tabloid Independent has reaped greatest gains in the C2DE consumer demographic. The Independent's growth is also against a backdrop of bulk sales at a level of just over 16,511 a day (copies which may be bought by third parties at a discount and are often given away), and the complications associated with the introduction of the tabloid edition in tandem with the traditional broadsheet format.
This dual edition strategy is very expensive, logistically and operationally difficult and industry sources say it is unsustainable.
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