» The truth about newspaper sales

The truth about newspaper sales

November 15th, 2008

The quarter ABC figures for newspaper sales have just come out. Normally the newspapers trumpet it selectively and manipulatively (I think this is called spin doctoring: “We are up AGAIN, if you compare our sales to this time in 1983, particularly among our target market of left-handed intellectuals”). But this time there was largely silence. Wondering why?

In general, the pattern was the same across the board: the older, traditional newspapers are flat or dropping; the new tabloids and isiZulu newspapers continue to grow. Daily Sun, always, showed the biggest growth, of over 7 000 daily sales on average to take it to 488 718. With it was Die Son (daily) which grew from 96 000 to 104 000. Also up fractionally was the Daily Dispatch, a credit to editor Phylicia Opphelt (who has just moved back to Joburg to edit Business Times), and the tiny Diamond Fields Advertiser. Isolezwe continued to grow, reaching 97 785.

Down were Beeld, Burger, Business Day, Cape Argus, Cape Times, Citizen, Daily News, The Herald, Mercury, Pretoria News, Sowetan, Star, Volksblad, The Witness.

It is clear which is the longer list, and why these papers largey forgot to report the figures.

Total daily newspaper sales were down - for the first time in years - from 1 925 000 to 1 904 000, roughly.

Among weeklies, the Weekender described itself as the best year-on-year performer, with 15% growth. That is true, but it is off the low base of 11 043, now 12 078. That continues their healthy growth, but begs the question of whether a newspaper is sustainable at these levels. I hope it is, as I like the Weekender, but it is a question which must be asked.

Mail & Guardian, which has seen impressive growth in recent years, dipped back a bit to 47 424. Ilanga also grew to 102 000, showing that the Isolezwe competition is doing it good. Isolezwe’s new Sunday edition debuted at a modest 45 000.

City Press grew fractionally to 198 727. Sunday Times was as level as a pancake at 504 000. It is noteworthy that their subscriptions have not benefited enourmously from their free daily, the Times. Their indvidual subscriptions were at 124 000 two years ago, 118 000 last year and now are at 121 000.

It is the tabloids and isiZulu papers keeping life in the market. For the older papers, things are not looking rosy. I can guess that their readerships are aging every year.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print

2 Comments Add your own

1. David Ansara | November 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am

Anton

I have noticed that more and more online versions of publications offer all of their content in digital version and no longer have ‘premium content’ reserved for subscribers eg. M&G online, The Economist, etc.

I welcome the development for selfish reasons, but do you think this is having a negative impact on off-line readership figures? This doesn’t seem to make commercial sense to me, but what is their motivation for doing this?
2. Peter Hall | February 8th, 2009 at 8:10 pm

Thank you for this information. Where can one find the full breakdown of ABC circulation figures ? It seems to be well hidden from Joe Public.

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Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)