CIRCULATION & READERSHIP - May 2008

Friday, May 16, 2008

FAIRFAX MEDIA PUBLICATIONS CIRCULATION AND READERSHIP RESULTS FOR NEWSPAPERS, INSERTED MAGAZINES AND WEBSITES – TO MARCH 2008

Once again The Age and Sunday Age have defied the worldwide decline in newspaper sales and readership. Our performance is measured by total number of readers by Roy Morgan Research and actual copy sales by the ABC.

READERSHIP
As an indicator of the total audience for The Age we believe that total readership is a better measure than actual sales, since many of our readers don't buy the paper yet still read it with, say, a coffee at a favourite cafe. Figures out today show The Age to be the fastest-growing weekday newspaper in Victoria, with readership at 765,000 a day, which is up 24,000 (or up 3.2%) for the period April '07 to March '08 compared with last year. This gives The Age a lead of nearly 700,000 over The Australian, which is down 2.3% to 84,000. The longerterm trend for The Age is also encouraging, with readership up by 76,000 since 2003.

Our Saturday readership at 957,000 is also up by 6000 or 0.6% on last year in a very competitive market. Again this gives the Saturday Age a lead of 800,000 over The Weekend Australian, which recorded 148,000 readers. The Sunday Age recorded its second-highest-ever figure with a 1.9% rise or an extra 14,000 readers to 735,000. Our readership growth has come from attracting 5.4% more 18-24-year-olds during the week and an extra 4.1% on Sundays, with an extra 3.5% high income AB earners during the week and 4.1% on Sundays.

CIRCULATION SALES
The Age recorded a small decline of 1000 copies or 0.49% to 202,500, which was marginally better than the national average market decline of 0.75%, according to the new ABC audited figures for the period Jan-March 2008. Again total sales have steadily grown by 6550 since 2003. On Saturdays we recorded a figure of 299,800 which was down slightly by 700 copies or 0.23%. Again this was ahead of the rest of the national market, which was down by 1.34%. The Sunday Age recorded another increase to a new total of 220,900 which is up 600 copies or 0.27% against a national decline of 1.53%.

Note: The chairman of the ABC has recorded a comment that newspapers in Victoria have been adversely affected during this audit by the unusually high number of long weekends, Easter Holidays and first-term school holidays in contrast to the same period last year. Without that disruption to our readers' normal reading patterns, we believe we would have recorded even stronger performance.

- ANDREW JASPAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


DON CHURCHILL
CHIEF EXECUTIVE AND PUBLISHER
VICTORIAN METROPOLITAN AND COMMUNITY PUBLISHING

Throughout this audit period, The Age performed steadily in a tightening retail market. We maintained high readership levels, with the Monday-Friday paper again increasing its readership. The Age also achieved 0.6% growth on Saturdays, while The Sunday Age recorded its second highest readership result on record.

Our steady growth reflects a strong reader base. Readership growth was achieved in spite of a confluence of holidays in the first quarter of the year. Even though the Audit Bureau of Circulations declined a request by The Age to adjust the audit period, the ABC Executive provided an unusual undertaking to comment about the adverse effect on sales arising from holidays in Victoria.

Sales of The Age fell slightly during the period. However, even in the absence of any seasonal adjustment, the downturn was minor. Monday-Friday sales fell by only 1000 copies. Similarly, Saturday sales declined by only 700 copies. The Sunday Age bucked the trend, and again recorded a circulation increase.

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Source: Fairfax Media
Release Date: 16 May 2008 00:00