Ireland Newspapers - Irish newspapers battle for ad spend

The Island of Ireland report on the newspaper sector, published by the Audit Bureau of Circulations every six months, reveals a congested landscape of newspaper titles, both regional and national, battling for advertising spend.

According to BMRB/All Ireland TGI data, newspaper user habits have been changing since 2004. The proportion of internet users who access newspaper websites in both the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI) has risen from 20% in 2004 to 27% in 2007, but under half the total population now read a newspaper everyday.

However, there is still a wealth of new titles, development strategies and bullish circulation figures to attract the media buyer.

The ABC July to December 2007 figures show that the three leading daily morning papers in the Republic - The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and the Irish Examiner - all increased or held their circulations steady period on period.

The Irish Independent posted a 0% circulation increase to 160,854 (up from 160,818), The Irish Times was up 0.8% to 119,051 (up from 118,150), and the Irish Examiner was up 0.2% to 55,948 (up from 55,860).

However, the number of evening papers circulated across the Republic has dropped by 1.5% period on period (1,680 copies). The Evening Herald in Dublin posted a circulation decline of 0.9% to 82,084 (down from 82,854), and The Evening Echo in Cork showed a 3.4% drop in circulation to 25,904 (down from 26,814).

In Northern Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph, which also publishes the Northwest Telegraph, Sunday Life and four regional editions, is down 9.5% period on period. The paper currently has an ABC circulation of 75,602 and, according to assistant managing director Richard McClean: "We continue to outsell the market, but recognise the challenges we have to overcome. We have a strong circulation and we are uncompromising in our aim to deliver the maximum readership."

He continues: "By the end of Q2, we'll have relaunched our website and be focusing on an increased penetration online. The shift in newspaper trends means that greater investment needs to go into digital and away from the logistical infrastructure of buying from the newsagent. This is why our home-delivery service will continue to act as a solid platform."

The BelfastTelegraph.co.uk website is complemented by digital brand extensions NICarfinder.co.uk, LoadzaJobs.co.uk and PropertyNews.com. Last year, the paper launched Belfast Telegraph TV as part of the interactive website.

In the Republic, poor broadband penetration does not appear to be preventing Dublin-based newspapers making digital inroads of their own. At the forefront are The Irish Times, which acquired Myhome.ie and Entertainment.ie for EUR50m two years ago, and Independent.ie, which recently launched idworks.ie: a digital advertising service aimed at agencies.

Streamlined service
"Idworks.ie is an evolving service aimed at streamlining how we service our clients," says Independent.ie commercial director Mark Lawlor. "Over the coming months, we will be releasing some tasty functionality that will be a first for our industry."

Another trend highlighted in the ABC circulation figures for April 2008 is the success of the Irish editions of daily British newspapers in the Republic.

All the Irish editions of daily British titles - with the exception of the Daily Mail, The Independent and The Times - show circulation increases over the period November 2007 to April 2008. The most popular daily British title is the Irish Sun, up 0.5% period on period to 104,855, followed by the Irish Daily Star, up 4.6% to 103,487, and the Irish Daily Mirror, up 4.4% to 72,169.

However, in the Sunday market, indigenous titles dominate. Sunday World, which has overtaken its closest rival the Sunday Independent for the first time, leads the way with an average ABC circulation (year to December 2007) of 283,801, up 1.9% year on year. The Sunday Independent has dropped 5,291 copies over the same period, down 1.8% to 282,459.

According to the Joint National Readership Survey results, which cover the same six-month period as ABC, the morning newspaper market as a whole shows an increase of 87,000 readers. Two factors that continue to influence here are the launch of the Irish Daily Mail in February 2006, and the introduction in late 2005 of the morning daily free newspapers Herald AM, owned by Independent News & Media, and Metro.

According to Lee Thompson, managing director of Metro Ireland, the paper currently has a higher ABC1 profile than The Irish Times and is punching above its weight. He says: "Advertisers and agencies will always pay a premium for a groundbreaking idea and Metro is a pioneer of cover-wraps. From May, we introduced glossy wraps and glossy inserts. The big media agencies demand them."

Metro and Herald AM are distributed around a 100km stretch of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) rail line. In contrast to London, both papers work with each other and the council to ensure there is no visible waste.

Burgeoning group
Thompson says: "The people of Dublin just wouldn't stand for it if they had to travel to work through a sea of newsprint."

Dublin's fastest-growing regional newspaper company is Gazette Group. In the past four years, Gazette Group Newspapers has launched eight weekly titles. The final three were launched in a six-week period culminating in the launch of the Castleknock Gazette on 27 March. The titles have a combined print run of 48,000, which, according to group editor Kevin MacDermot, will rise to 60,000 by the end of the summer.

He says: "We've now completed our plan to launch within the key developing communities around the M50. However, I wouldn't rule out further launches and we'd never close the door on other parts of the city."

Last year, The Irish Times acquired a 44% stake in Gazette Group, enabling the company's rapid expansion and an increase in pagination. Initially, the papers were paid-for, but MacDermot admits: "Life is getting expensive enough in Dublin, so we decided to go free after our third launch."

North of the border, the family-owned Mourne Observer is one of a small number of weekly paid-for regional papers to have consecutively increased its ABC over 18 months. With a circulation of 11,639, the rural paper covers 20 miles in all directions around the town of Newcastle, County Down.

The newspaper's editor, Terence Bowman, admits he has to fight for every sale. He says: "Northern Ireland is coming out of a period of conflict, and murder and mayhem used to regularly form much of our editorial content. As the economy and politics have stabilised, we face new challenges in our coverage of social change, as well as attracting direct advertisement from a declining property market."

Ann-Marie Lenihan, communications manager for trade body National Newspapers of Ireland, believes that property advertising is beginning to make a recovery, although recruitment advertising is not as buoyant as in previous years.

According to NNI data, EUR367m was spent on advertising in the 18 NNI member titles during 2007. The majority (EUR207m) came from agencies, with an increased spend of more than 8% compared to the previous year.

The member titles attracted spend of almost EUR50m in 2007 from the highest-spending agency, Aegis Media (incorporating Carat, Brindley Advertising and Vizeum).

Other agencies that have upped their advertising spend in the past year include GroupM (11%), OMD Ireland (22%), Young Euro RSCG (30%) and Pierce Media (25%).

Paul Moran, managing director of Dublin media agency Mediaworks, says that advertising rates in provincial media are expensive compared to the UK, whereas there has been a "softening" of rate cards by the red-tops in the past five years

"The trend is for classified - especially property, jobs and cars - to begin moving online," he says. "Despite the costs per thousand being expensive, the quality of regional newspapers across Ireland is much improved, with full-colour print production and higher standards."

He adds: "The issues now being debated currently centre upon the Irish auditing process. I believe there is a case for a stand-alone ABC audit and increased data to move forward from here and build advertiser confidence."

COMMENT - Should there be an independent ABC for Ireland?

Much debate and rumour is circulating across Ireland regarding the frequency of ABC auditing and the need for an independent ABC Ireland.

The ABC Irish Advisory Committee will replace John Mayhead, the chairman of ABC, with a local Irish chairman following the end of his three-year tenure.

However, this will not be a move towards a stand-alone ABC Ireland.

ABC UK is held in high esteem across the world, and the rules and standards adopted by the Irish Advisory Committee are based upon the British model. British national newspapers publish monthly ABC figures, but the majority of Irish nationals choose to publish only once every six months. If a UK rule is brought in, the Irish Advisory Committee does not have to accept it, so it does retain an element of independent thinking.

If Ireland was ever to agree by consensus that it did want a stand-alone organisation, we would help it to set it up, as we have done with 37 ABCs around the world. In the meantime, following discussion with the market, we are set to change the reporting structure of ABC auditing in Ireland instead.

When ABC figures for British national newspapers are reported, they are talked about as one figure that is then broken down by region. The Irish national newspapers have just one figure with very little additional demographic data.

For example, The Irish Times recently posed a circulation of 119,000. The UK and ROI combined circulation was 117,000, with "other countries" contributing sales of 1,200 copies. The ABC certificate will now give a net figure and then detail the breakdown between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and others.

From the next Island of Ireland report, to be published on 21 August, the newspaper audits will contain more detail of benefit to media planners.

Chris Boyd, Chief executive, ABC

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