Irish Examiner gains 6,000 readers a day in challenging times

The Irish Examiner was the only broadsheet newspaper in Ireland to increase its readership last year.

The latest Joint National Readership Survey for 2011 has revealed that an extra 6,000 people a day now choose the Irish Examiner as their principal source of printed news.

The newspaper’s readership grew by 3% to reach an average total of 181,000 readers a day on average during the year.

Tim Vaughn, the editor of the Irish Examiner, described the readership increase as a “remarkable achievement” at a difficult time for the industry.

The newspaper’s bumper Weekend package has proved a huge success, attracting almost quarter of a million readers every week. The male-female readership balance of the Irish Examiner now stands at 45%-55%.

Frank Cullen, National Newspapers of Ireland co-ordinating director, said: “Newspaper publishing is all about original content. We place a very high value on quality, original journalism and I think the latest JNRS shows that most people in Ireland do as well.”

This is the first set of readership results to take the Irish Examiner’s revamped Saturday package into account, featuring a Weekend supplement with a seven-day TV guide. Coverage of events such as the visits of Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama, along with the general and presidential elections, boosted the newspaper’s readership.

The survey also offered encouraging responses from younger readers. Almost 80% of 19- to 24-year-olds and more than 70% of 25- to 34-year-olds read a newspaper on a regular basis. Among students, almost 76% regularly read a newspaper.

“We’re very encouraged by our readership profile among younger people,” said NNI’s Frank Cullen. “It’s one of the first statistics I look for when the JNRS is published, and once again it’s very pleasing to see that newspapers have maintained their popularity and relevance, even among today’s digital generation.”

The only other newspaper to gain readers was The Irish Mirror (up 11%), with the Irish Independent and Irish Times suffering significant losses, down 62,000 (12%) and 29,000 (9%) readers respectively. The Irish Daily Star lost 12,000 readers (3%), the Irish Daily Mail is down 3,000 (2%) and The Sun is down 1%.

The Irish Examiner maintains its dominant position in Munster, where is continues to outstrip the combined readership of the Irish Independent and Irish Times by 12,000. The Irish Examiner also added to its traditional strong Cork readership base, attracting 14,000 additional readers. Reader loyalty remains a strength of the Irish Examiner, with 69% not reading any other daily title.

The Sunday Independent remained the most read Sunday title, with 939,000 readers. The Sunday World came second with 819,000, followed by the Sunday Times (386,000).

These figures also showed that while newspapers remain a core information source for people in Ireland, the frequency with which people read newspapers declined during 2011.

The data showed that occasional readers were making up a greater proportion of readers for daily and Sunday titles, according to Milward Brown’s figure analysis.

Picture: Beth Haughton, proprietor, The Club Brasserie Restaurant, Lapp's Quay, Cork, with the Irish Examiner.