Ireland on Sunday remains on top

THE practice of selling papers in bulk at a discount, has helped shore up reported sales of Independent News & Media newspapers.

On Saturday, a front-page Irish Independent report said the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures showed the paper was holding “rock steady” in a difficult market, with sales of just under 170,000 a day, in the six-month period from July to December 2002.

However, the ABC figures reveal a huge increase in bulk sales (where copies may be bought by third parties at a discount and often given away free of charge) of the Independent in the second half of last year.

In the period July-December 2001, just over 3,000 of the paper’s daily 170,000 sale were bulk sales, but this rose to an average of 21,000 a day during the same six-month period in 2002.

IN&M titles, the Sunday Independent and the Evening Herald also significantly increased bulk sales as fully paid for sales dropped.

Actively-purchased sales of the Irish Independent reduced from 98% to 88% in this period.

This practice has been highlighted by Independent’s own stockbroker, Goodbody Stockbrokers, who acknowledged that IN&M “has experienced a sharp fall-off in actively-purchased sales of all of its titles, but has significantly increased its bulk sales.”

Goodbody analyst Neil Clifford called the drop-off in IN&M sales “significant.”

Of the other daily broadsheets, the Irish Examiner’s sales held at 64,628.

However, the Irish Times showed a drop in sales, down to 114,000 from 120,000 in the previous year, which Mr Clifford said could be due to the increase in the cover price of the paper, up 10 cent to €1.40.

In the Sunday market, the main winner as expected was Ireland on Sunday with 151,000 sales over the six month-period covered by the survey.

Media watchers have questioned how long Associated Newspapers can sustain its aggressive marketing campaign with free CDs and magazines accompanying the paper at a massive cost to the company.

The Sunday Business Post’s circulation slipped to 48,949 from 50,949 in July-December 2001.

The Sunday Business Post, owned by Thomas Crosbie Holdings which also owns the Irish Examiner, says its sales have picked up since the beginning of this year.