More than four out of five people in Ireland read a printed newspaper regularly but only slightly more than one in 10 regularly read newspapers online, new research has found.

Data compiled for the Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) has found that 84 per cent of adults in Ireland regularly access newspaper content, either in print or online.

Some 82 per cent read print, while 11 per cent of those questioned read or accessed newspaper content online.

The figures are based on the “average issue readership” of newspapers and their websites, which is defined as “read yesterday” in the case of daily titles and “read in the past week” in the case of Sunday titles and weeklies.

Online audience

Over longer time frames, almost one in five people accessed and read newspaper content online, with 17 per cent of people reading online at least monthly.

Less than 3 per cent of all readers read newspaper content online only, with the majority of the online audience also reading printed newspapers. The Sunday online audience was much smaller than that of daily titles.

The data suggests that newspaper readers are choosing to access newspaper content on more than one platform.

“Online provides a small net contribution to total readership,” said Robin Addis, consultant at Millward Brown Lansdowne, which carries out the research on behalf of JNRS members. The JNRS found a clear generation gap in online readership, with 17 per cent under the age of 45 reading newspapers online at least weekly, but just 8 per cent aged 45-plus reading online at the same frequency.

The online audience is also heavily weighted in favour of the AB and C1 social classes.