Newspapers continue to decline but Magazines could be making a comeback!

Latest results from Roy Morgan Research have revealed that major newsprint readership is continuing to decline.

National publication The Australian Saturday edition has fallen from 686,000 in September 2015 to 638,000 in September 2016. Likewise, their Monday to Friday edition has also dropped, with a loss of 11,000 readers.

Newspaper readership continues to decline… here are the latest figures!

Digital subscriptions were thought to be the great savior for newspapers however the first round of stats for combined print and digital sales have been released and so far only The Australian is moving in the right direction.

Circulation figures for the June quarter have just been released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), alongside the first year-on-year stats for combined print, digital and package sales (masthead sales).

In total, the print market saw a 10.9% year-on-year decline in sales, with News Corp Australia titles dropping 9.7% in total and Fairfax 16.4%.

The declines in masthead sales are not as steep as the declines in print-only sales, indicating digital sales are making some inroads. However, digital growth is not yet sufficient at present to balance out print circulation decline.

Looking to print-only circulation figures, the results in the June quarter were particularly bleak. Not a single newspaper recorded positive growth, and across News Corp and Fairfax the best result was a 6.8% decline recorded by Fairfax’s weekday edition of The Australian Financial Review. The strongest result across the whole market was recorded by West Australian Newspapers’ West Australian, with a 3.8% drop.

Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald experienced the largest print decline, sliding 17%.

Newspaper inserted magazines also saw major declines across the board, with all audited titles seeing circulation drops. The total NIMs market fell 12%.

CLICK HERE to check out the complete set of ABC Circulation figures released August 2013 of Metropolitan Newspapers, Magzines & Inserts.

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