Global Newspaper Sales Up 2% In 2004

Currently over 395 million people buy a newspaper daily, compared to 374 million in 1999. Last year a 2% increase in daily newspaper circulation was reported, with a record 56 broadsheets shifting to tabloid size, resulting in 36% of the world’s newspapers being published in compact format, up by 2% in the last six months.

Timothy Balding, director general of WAN explained this upturn, saying: “Newspapers are clearly undergoing a renaissance through new products, new formats, new titles, new editorial approaches, better distribution and better marketing.”

In the UK, however, the compact revolution has failed to halt overall circulation declines, with sales of British newspapers dropping by 4.5% in 2004 and more than 11% since 2000.

This confirms a report published at the beginning of the year, by The McKinsey Quarterly, that argues that the compact switch has not had the success that publishers had hoped for, with increases in circulation figures disguising the sector’s increasing struggle with advertisers (see Tabloid Format May Not Deliver Success).

According to WAN, newspaper circulation throughout the European Union faired better than in the UK, dropping less than 1% in 2004, with eight EU countries boosting their circulation.

Sunday newspapers are also shown to be struggling in the market, with sales tumbling by 5.5% in markets including America, Britain, Germany and France.

According to analyst, eMarketer, US newspaper circulation is at its lowest since 1996, with daily circulation dropping by 1.9% in the six month period ending March 31 and Sunday circulation losing 2.5% of sales over the last six months (see US Newspaper Circulation At Lowest Since 1996).

Asia and Africa recorded the largest daily newspaper circulation gains in 2004, up by 4% and 6% respectively. China is shown to have the most publications in the top 100, while Japan still boasts the single highest selling daily, with the Yomiuri Shimbun selling more than 14 million copies a day.

Sales of US dailies continued the downwards trend, dipping by 1%, with afternoon paper circulation falling by 6% compared to a drop of just 0.09% for morning newspapers.

The rise of the internet and subsequent influx of online news sites has resulted in traffic to newspaper websites increasing by 32% in 2004, up by a massive 350% since 1999, with internet revenues jumping by 21% last year according to WAN.

This increase in popularity for internet news sites is confirmed by a recent report by the Newspaper Association of America, showing that online newspaper readership in March was up by 31% year on year.

A recent survey by Merrill Brown for the Carnegie Corporation also reveals that the US population is increasingly shifting to the internet as their primary source of news, with consumers accessing and processing information in ways that “challenge the historic function of the news business and raise fundamental questions about the future of the news field (see Internet Becoming Primary News Source In US).”

Newspapers were also shown to have recorded strong advertising growth in 2004, with WAN revealing that global newspaper ad revenues grew by 5.3%, the biggest increase in five years.

The outlook for the industry remains positive, with media agency, ZenithOptimedia, predicting continued growth of 4.5% to 5.4% globally over the next three years.