Survey shows Irish Examiner readers are still as loyal as ever

THE readership of daily newspapers in Ireland has jumped by almost 6%, according to the latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS).

For the first time the JNRS, conducted by Lansdowne Market Research, used the GeoDirectory exclusively as the sampling source instead of the register of electors. This means that direct comparison with the readership figures of previous years is difficult.

Nevertheless, the Irish Examiner has effectively maintained its readership over the period with 256,000 readers everyday — down 1% from 2005/2006.

The Irish Times saw its readership drop by 6.74% or 23,000 readers, while the Irish Independent readership increased by 4.24%.

And the survey reinforced the huge loyalty factor among Examiner readers, with 76% — almost eight in 10 — reading no other Irish daily newspaper.

The survey shows that the Irish Examiner is dominant in its core Munster market, adding 6,000 readers in the last year. The newspaper’s Munster readership is 73,000 more readers than the combined readership in the province of the Irish Independent and the Irish Times.

The National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) described the report, which covers the 12 months to June 2007 as hugely encouraging. The survey results are based on face-to-face interviews with 7,000 people in their homes.

The NNI’s Frank Cullen said the most positive finding of the 06/07 survey comes from the youth demographic where 86.9% of Irish 15-to-18 year olds now “read any newspaper“.

“A few years ago, the perception was that newspapers would struggle to attract new readers, especially younger people.

“What we’re seeing now is great news for our publishers: although the internet and mobile phone are used for keeping in touch, young people do want to read and they are mostly reading newspapers. Ireland’s youth has always been very bright and very literate, and happily that looks set to continue,” he added.

The modern newspaper gives us a unique insight into the habits and trends of the millions of people who are regular readers, according to Mr Cullen.

“This ability to target not only makes the newspaper more relevant and interesting to the reader, it also delivers a commercial value that other media cannot match. Our industry is in good health at the moment, we have a great range of products and our customer base is growing all the time,” Mr Cullen said.