Newspaper ad spend climbs 4% annually

The economic pick-up is filtering down to the newspaper industry with increased advertising revenue reported for the first time since 2007.

Latest figures from NewsBrands Ireland — the newspaper industry’s representative body — show an increase of 4% in advertising spendacross the 16 national daily, Sunday and weekly titles in the first half of the year.

A total of €80.6m was spent on print and online advertising in the opening six months.

Of this, agency spend rose 7% to €47.8m on the previous year while direct advertising spend remained unchanged at €32.8m.

NewsBrands Ireland chairman Vincent Crowley welcomed the figures as a signal of the improving health of the industry and an endorsement of the trusted content produced by its members.

“Advertisers recognise the strength of engagement NewsBrands readers have with our product across all formats, which, together with the improving economic backdrop, has resulted in a satisfying lift in advertising in the six months to June 2015,” said Mr Crowley.

Details released last week showed engagement with newspapers had increased in the past year with almost 3m adults reading their news in print or online.

The figures showed a strong increase in the Irish Examiner’s readership with 13,000 additional readers.

Of the advertising agencies, Mediavest topped the table in terms of amount spent with an increase of 43% raising its total to €7.5m.

MEC Ireland, in ninth place, recorded the highest percentage annual increase with 87% growth in their spend.