Sunday Times Claims New Monthly CD-Rom Boosted Sales
The Sunday Times is claiming that nearly 700,000 of its readers used the first edition of its interactive CD-Rom entertainment supplement, The Month.
The widely marketed interactive feature, which launched at the end of April, has also been credited with boosting the paper’s circulation by 160,000 copies. However, this is thought to have dropped to 100,000 for the second issue.
The latest edition of Month contains a range of entertainment news, sound extracts and film trailers designed to offer readers an interactive package. The initiative has been closely eyed by other national newspapers, which are thought to be wary of the huge costs involved.
Commenting on the initiative, Paul Hayes, general manager of the Times, said: “I’m delighted with such positive results. It is clear that The Month has been hugely popular with readers. We spent a lot of time researching the needs of the modern newspaper reader, and these figures justify our innovation.”
He added: “This has been a £10 million investment for the title, including across the board advertising and marketing partnerships with all the major players in the entertainment industry.”
Research carried out by The Sunday Times reveals that 71% of readers are aware of the first issue of The Month and 20% claim to have used it. A further 42% of readers spent more than 20 minutes using the disk with music and film proving to be the most popular channels.
Andrew Mullins, marketing director of the Times, said: “We have more young ABC1 readers than any other quality newspaper and they expect much more. Entertainment is especially important to these readers, who have been brought up using computers. The Month is the perfect medium for them.”
The latest ABC figures for the six months to September 2003 show that The Sunday Times saw its circulation decline by 2.6% year on year to 1,357,869. The Times also suffered with a 2.6% dip during the same period to 634,232.
Times Newspapers recently announced it is to part company with its group advertising director, John Trickett, who is stepping down after five years in the job. His departure comes just weeks after a review of the group’s senior management structure and the appointment of Mike Gordon to the newly created position of commercial director (see Times Parts Ways With Advertising Head After Shake-Up).
News International: 020 7782 392 www.newscorp.co.uk
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