As we have seen from successful newsagency sales benchmark reports published here, newspaper sales are continuing to decline, presenting traffic-generation and relevance challenges for newsagents. This once staple product category is fading in terms of overall sales and, for our channel, in terms of our own relevance for the product with other retailers offering sometimes a more convenient purchase point option for newspapers.
The latest newspaper sales audit covering April through June 2013 compared to 2012 show a double digit decline for daily newspapers in Australia. The Australian has a full table of results today on page 27. See B&T for details including:
In the metropolitan market it’s a case of more of the same as circulations continue to fall, with Fairfax’s big two The Sydney Morning Herald (-17% M-F) and The Age (-16.2% M-F) posting weighty declines. It doesn’t get any better for Fairfax in the weekend metro division, with the Sun-Herald handed the unfortunate tag of the steepest decline (-20.4%) of the mastheads audited, while theSMH weekend edition (-20.2%) fared little better.
and…
Over at the News Limited stable, who said that they won’t be commenting on the ABC data, there was little to gloat about, with The Daily Telegraph (-11.2% M-F) and Herald Sun (-10.3% M-F) posting double digit declines.
Some newsagents will say the decline is being facilitated by significant cover price increases. While I think the cover price hikes are impacting sales, they are only a more recent factor.
Most of the decline we are seeing is a shift on home when and where people access news and the failure of the print product to offer an alternative appropriate to their slow delivery medium.