NRS PADD: Mobile is print’s knight in shining armour

Just three out of the 13 recorded newspaper brands currently have more readers in print than any other medium – with the decision to close the Independent’s print operations earlier this month looking to be a justifiable move.

With the average reach that mobile and tablet devices add to newsbrand and magazine audiences at 78%, mobile readership among the majority of newspaper titles is astronomical.

The Independent, which is to close its weekday and weekend editions at the end of March, records a solid combined print, PC and mobile readership of 19.4 million. Of that, 14.7 million come from mobile, 5.3 million from PC and just 2.3 million from print. Increasing reach by 178%, mobile almost triples the title’s standalone print and PC audience. ESI Media has announced plans to launch a subscription mobile app to monetise the growth.

The same goes for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Record and The Scotsman, which all reported mobile increases of well over 100%.

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However, not all is doom and gloom for the print market.

With 11.2 million of the Sun’s 13.8 million-strong audience coming from print, mobile increases the tabloid’s overall reach by just 9%. It will be interesting to see the impact that the removal of its paywall at the end of last year has on its PC and mobile audience, which are among some of the lowest figures across all the titles.

Similarly, mobile adds just 5% to The Times’ print and PC audience – with more than 4.4 million of its 5 million readers picking up a copy of the newspaper.

The London Evening Standard is the only other title to skew towards print – although marginally – with just short of 5.3 million readers out of 10 million in total coming from print. Despite the newspaper being free, 5.1 million still come from mobile and tablet devices.

The Daily Mail, the most popular newsbrand of all recorded titles with a combined audience of almost 29 million, records a strong readership across all platforms – with 19.3 million coming from mobile, 10.2 million from print and 9 million from PC.

Meanwhile, of Metro’s 20.2 million readers, 11.9 million prefer to consume content via mobile and 10.5 million in print, while 3.9 million of the Daily Star’s 6.8 million readership come from mobile devices and 2.5 million from print.

All figures are for January – December 2015