Readership of most Irish newspapers, including The Irish Times, rose significantly in 2003, according to the latest Joint National Readership Survey. Emmet Oliver reports.
Reacting to the figures, the National Newspapers of Ireland said the number of people reading newspapers was increasing at "a remarkable rate".
"The report, which covers the full year 2003, shows that more than nine out of 10 adults now read newspapers in a typical week. Furthermore, daily newspapers have picked up 37,000 new readers in the past six months, with Sunday newspapers attracting 38,000 new readers in the same period."
Readership figures show how many people on average read a copy of a newspaper. Circulation simply measures the average number of sales each day.
The average readership of The Irish Times in the calendar year 2003 was 319,000. As there was no survey covering the whole of 2002, no direct year-on-year comparison is possible. However, the average readership of The Irish Times between July 2002 and the end of June 2003 was 305,000, which means an increase of 14,000 readers, or 4.6 per cent.
The JNRS committee decided in 2002 to change the nature of the survey. To qualify as a reader, respondents must have read a publication for at least two minutes. Previously, if a person read or looked at a publication, no matter for how long, they qualified as a reader. For the survey on the whole of 2003, several British-owned titles were included for the first time. Lansdowne Market Research produced the data.
Average readership for the Irish Independent stood at 532,000 for the whole of 2003. This was up from 522,000 in the period between July 2002 and the end of June 2003. This meant an increase of 10,000 readers, or 1.9 per cent.
The Examiner was one of the few newspapers to experience a fall-off in readership. For 2003 this stood at 206,000, whereas during the period between July 2002 and the end of June 2003 the average figure was 210,000. This represented a drop of 1.9 per cent. The decline for the Examiner was surprising considering that the population rose by 0.4 per cent between the two survey periods.
The Star had an average readership for 2003 of 437,000. Between July 2002 and the end of June 2003 the figure was 435,000. This represented an increased readership of 2,000, or 0.46 per cent.
The Evening Herald had an average readership of 343,000 for 2003, compared with 338,000 in the second half of 2002 and the first six months of 2003. This represented a 1.48 per cent readership rise.
The Sunday Independent achieved an average readership of 1,064,000 for 2003, compared to 1,002,000 for the second half of 2002 and the first half of 2003. This represented an increase of 6.2 per cent.
The Sunday World had an average readership of 827,000 in 2003, and 847,000 in the year between July 2002 and June 2003, marking a drop of 2.36 per cent.
Average readership of the Sunday Tribune reached 219,000 in 2003; between July 2002 and the end of June 2003 the figure was 218,000, marking a rise of 0.46 per cent.
Ireland On Sunday achieved a 2003 average readership of 446,000. Between July 2002 and the end of June 2003, this figure stood at 433,000.
The Sunday Business Post had an average readership of 158,000 in 2003, and 153,000 for the second half of 2002 and first half of 2003. This translated into a rise of 5,000 readers, or 3.2 per cent.