The publication of the latest newspaper circulation figures provoked an unusually vitriolic attack on the Irish Examiner in the pages of the rival Irish Independent this week. It went well beyond the normal interpreting of figures.
"So where stands the much hyped relaunch of the `Cork' Examiner?," asked the Irish Independent on its front page on Wednesday. "After spending millions on a doubtful redesign, throwing untold reels of expensive newsprint at an inflated pagination budget and using the unnecessary commercialisation of its editor to front an ill-conceived promotional campaign, this morning they can very easily count the gains - an uninspiring 380 copies a day increase," it continued. The Examiner was in fact up 2,215 copies on a year-on-year basis and the relaunched product was only on sale for eight weeks in the period in question.
"This must bring home to the management the folly of straying outside their market and the realisation that they cannot punch their weight in the national league," it continued.
The next day the paper gave half a page of its business supplement over to the same theme. An article by a Mr Garrett O'Connor opened with the lines "What are we to make of the re-launched Irish Examiner? Despite a second makeover in four years, which combined a lacklustre redesign with wasting untold tons of newsprint on fictional added value and a TV campaign of mind numbing crassness what has been the net gain - a paltry 380 copies". Mr O'Connor went on to attack the paper's journalists and management.
Attempts to contact Mr O'Connor through the Irish Independent proved unsuccessful yesterday. "He doesn't work here. He is some sort of academic," was the reply. The editor, Mr Vinnie Doyle, was also unavailable for comment.
In Cork, the Irish Examiner executives are maintaining a dignified silence but are quietly chuffed that the Independent has sat up and taken notice of them. "There is no way they would have given us that sort of attention a few years ago. It is exactly what the Sun did to the Mirror 20 years ago. They goaded the Mirror into attacking them and Mirror readers started buying the Sun to see what the fuss was about," said one executive.
The paper's editor, Mr Brian Looney is careful not to get dragged into a slagging match. "I don't think there is anything to respond to. It is just vulgar abuse. We are extremely happy with our circulation and are on track for sales of 66,000 in the second half of the year," he said yesterday. The Independent's strong response perplexes the Examiner's management. Although it may have publicly talked of taking on the Independent, the Examiner has been careful to avoid any head to head confrontations with its powerful rival. It plans to grow from the paper's Munster base and not challenge the Independent in its Leinster heartland. It wants to add another 10,000 sales over the next 12 months, but the battleground will be in areas like Galway and Kilkenny.
Sales of the Irish Examiner have increased by 15.4 per cent since 1996 to 62,793, but are still a long way behind the Independent's 167,567. The difference is that sales of the Independent have only grown by 6.4 per cent in the period. (Sales of The Irish Times are up 14.6 per cent in the period.)
