Read all about it… Results from the scramble to attract NotW readers
Paper Boy – the irreverent insider
Last Sunday was a once in a quarter of a century opportunity for newspaper publishers… the closure of the News of the World was the opportunity to grab a larger circulation base and market share.
The first thing to report is that, not surprisingly, there was a massive increase in the number of copies of Sunday newspapers printed and distributed to retailers. Availability (having copies of a paper in every shop throughout the whole day) increases the propensity to sell more newspapers. This is demonstrated throughout the retail world – for example, Coca Cola spends a fortune on merchandising just to make sure that shelves are full to capacity of product.
Secondly, several newspapers cut their cover price. Historically newspapers have been labelled as one trick ponies when it came to increasing sales – cutting price.
Thirdly, promotions were developed and brought forward. TV advertising was booked, £5 money-off offers were splashed.
With all this going on you would expect sales of newspapers to be reasonably high and to make up for lost sales by the shuttering of the News of the World. However, the Sunday newspaper market is a competitive market and it will take several months for it to settle down before we are able to see which titles, if any, did well at the expense of the News of the World. Moreover, can any gains be maintained or will the Sunday popular market continue to be the worst performing segment for newspaper publishers in terms of haemorrhaging sale?
Initial estimates indicate that the market hardly lost any volume because of all the activity. However, the money spent on newspapers would have been dramatically down. There would have been a lot of trialling because of price promotion.
Some insiders say that The Sunday Mirror and Daily Star Sunday have benefitted most from the demise of the News of the World. There was no visible editorial indication that the Mail on Sunday tried to shift a few degrees down market to attract readers who previously read the News of the World – they didn’t lead on Ashley Cole!
The Mail on Sunday would have been happy to target ABC1 News of the World readers and if Associated are planning the launch of a popular Sunday (evidently dummies are being tested) they would be looking to create clear water between a new paper and the Mail on Sunday. The media consultancy Enders Analysis forecast that if News International were to launch a Sunday Sun it would sell approximately 1.5 million copies – so 1.2 million adrift of the average News of the World sale. (Speaking at yesterday’s culture select committee, James Murdoch said there has been “no decision” on a new Sunday tabloid yet).
If 63% of News of the World readers didn’t read any other Sunday newspaper (4.7 million) this would be a starting base to evaluate the size of the prize for other newspapers. If we wanted to make a guesstimate at copy sales up for grabs we can establish that the News of the World had 2.8 readers per copy. Therefore, the 4.7 million people that don’t read another Sunday but read the News of the World equates to 1.68 million. However, this does assume that all these potential buyers actually wanted to buy another newspaper and didn’t just drop out of the market.
Evidence also suggests that “HackGate/EverythingGate” has affected the other News International titles. The Sun is starting to see a drop off but competitors in the quality market are pointing to a drop off in sales of both The Times and Sunday Times, as more ‘influential news junkie types’ are deterred from buying/reading a Murdoch owned organ because of the scandal.
Anyway, below are what I believe to be the most likely sales estimates for last Sunday from the many figures that have appeared over the last few days, with market share movements based on the average audited sale for June. There was so much noise in the market last week that understanding the impact and variables at play was near on impossible. As the weeks go by and the market settles I hope to give a prediction on where the market will settle…
| June (ABC) | Share | 17th July | Share | Variance | Variance % | Share Movement | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Totals | 8,918,747 | 100.0 | 9,079,866 | 100.0 | 161,119 | 1.8 | 0.0 |
| News of the World | 2,667,428 | 29.9 | n/a | 0.0 | -2,667,428 | -100.0 | -29.9 |
| Mail on Sunday | 1,927,791 | 21.6 | 2,600,000 | 28.6 | 672,209 | 34.9 | 7.0 |
| Sunday Mirror | 1,087,796 | 12.2 | 1,900,000 | 20.9 | 812,204 | 74.7 | 8.7 |
| Sunday Express | 539,478 | 6.1 | 700,000 | 7.7 | 160,522 | 29.8 | 1.7 |
| People | 474,549 | 5.3 | 900,000 | 9.9 | 425,451 | 89.7 | 4.6 |
| Daily Star on Sunday | 305,978 | 3.4 | 1,000,000 | 11.0 | 694,022 | 226.8 | 7.6 |
| Sunday Times | 1,000,848 | 11.2 | 1,028,872 | 11.3 | 28,024 | 2.8 | 0.1 |
| Sunday Telegraph | 474,722 | 5.3 | 488,964 | 5.4 | 14,242 | 3.0 | 0.1 |
| Observer | 288,928 | 3.2 | 306,264 | 3.4 | 17,336 | 6.0 | 0.1 |
| Independent on Sunday | 151,229 | 1.7 | 155,766 | 1.7 | 4,537 | 3.0 | 0.0 |
Source: ABC / MediaTel estimates
Source: ABC
Source: MediaTel estimates