What began as a casual conversation with an old colleague over a pint ended up as today’s accidental ‘data blog’.
“We hear a lot about the collapse of newspapers,” he said. “But what’s the actual decline over a set period of time? Just how fast is this supposed ‘death’ of print?”
This prompted me to research the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s archives to find out the detailed circulations of ten leading daily newspapers back in 2005, and to compare those figures with the latest available today.
Why ten newspapers, and why a decade? I don’t know, but ten felt like a representative sample and a decade felt like a rounded period of time.
While I was at it, I also noted any changing proportions of paid-for and free copies, and – where possible – the steep rises in cover prices. Here are the results:
| Title | H1 2005 | Paid-for 2005 | Cover price 2005 | H1 2015 | Paid-for 2005 | Cover price 2015 | 10 year decline |
| Belfast Telegraph | 94,095 | 91pc | £0.50 | 44,141 | 77pc | £0.80 | -53pc |
| Eastern Daily Press | 70,588 | 100pc | £0.45 to £0.60 | 39,821 | 100pc | £0.80 to £1.60 | -44pc |
| Glasgow Evening Times | 84,457 | 100pc | £0.35 | 29,951 | 100pc | £0.60 | -65pc |
| Liverpool Echo | 125,575 | 100pc | £0.38 to £0.45 | 58,388 (June) | 98pc | £0.65 to £1 | -53pc |
| Manchester Evening News | 137,391 | 97pc | £0.32 | 54,953 (June) | 60pc | £0.65 to £0.90 | -60pc |
| South Wales Argus | 31,058 | 100pc | £0.35 | 12,110 | 100pc | £0.65 | -61pc |
| The News, Portsmouth | 60,414 | 100pc | £0.35 | 24,251 | 100pc | £0.70 to £0.85 | -59pc |
| Northern Echo | 55,404 | 100pc | n/a | 27,819 | 100pc | £0.70 to £1 | -50pc |
| W’hampton Express & Star | 158,130 | 100pc | n/a | 67,745 | 88pc | £0.55 to £0.70 | -57pc |
| Yorkshire Post | 57,186 | 100pc | £0.60 | 27,903 | 95pc | £0.80 to £1.70 | -51pc |
▪ All data from ABC records
Fairly sobering, isn’t it? Ten daily newspapers chosen at random – albeit roughly trying to reflect the UK’s geography and owners – have lost anything from 44pc to 65pc in circulation over the past decade.
I’m sure there will be certain papers with higher percentage losses (the Bolton News springs to mind) and others which are much lower (such as the Aberdeen Press & Journal), but the -55pc average of the above 10 researched titles is likely to reflect the sector nationwide.
For some papers, such as the Manchester Evening News, the decline of -60pc in circulation would be much worse if you only considered paid-for copies, as its proportion of free copies has increased from 3pc to 40pc since 2005.
And the changes in cover price raise the question of how much of the decline might be due to readers feeling that ink on paper has become unaffordable – for instance, The News in Portsmouth has seen a 100pc price rise, while the Saturday edition of the Eastern Daily Press has soared by 167pc.
What’s undeniable is that the decline has been steep; what’s certain is that the print circulation is not coming back; and what’s difficult but necessary to accept is that the industry itself is partly responsible for this disaster.
Yes, there’s been the double structural and cyclical hit of a digital explosion and the biggest recession since the 1930s, both of which have massively contributed to fast-declining revenues and profit, with all the painful but necessary cut-backs that this has caused.
But critics would argue that certain publishers have made deeper cuts than were necessary, coupled with a lack of investment, to meet stock market pressure for profit margins, and that this has resulted in more severe change than any product can cope with.
This strain of thought would include knock-on effects such as fewer staff than can properly cover some geographies and sectors, meaning lower than acceptable editorial quality and relevance, along with the complete absence of any serious marketing budget.
The same philosophy would point at other strategies that have contributed to this perfect storm, such as the consolidation of ownership at a rate that was unimaginable ten years ago.
Then there’s the switch to overnight publication that was still an anathema for ‘evening’ newspapers in early 2005 but that has now completely removed the live news that once helped sell them.
This, it would be argued, has also sacrificed an expensive and complex but working and community-minded local newspaper sales strategy to the circulation god that is WHSmith.
People can be too print-centric, of course, and often need reminding that despite the temptation to doubt and decry corporate enthusiasm for digital journalism, the regional industry is right to attempt to grow as big a digital audience as it can so that it can transfer as much revenue as possible to print titles’ online reincarnations.
But surely, the critics would counter, credible levels of resource and quality should be retained for both online and print, given that at best only 20pc of revenues are from digital.
“Ink on paper still pays the overwhelming majority of wages,” is their battle cry, “and so newspapers should be cherished, not treated like soon-to-be-extinct dinosaurs.”
The arguments will continue, but the facts and prospects are staring us all in the face: the sales of printed regional newspapers have more than halved since 2005, and could shrink by at least as much again by 2025 if we’re lucky – but perhaps by far, far more.
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With the EDP losing 44% of its readership base yet doubling its cover price in that time,it seems incredible that they still claim to be ” the countrys best regional newspaper”
as evidenced by what?
maybe that a decline of 44% is less than other regional dailies? we can but wonder
Gone are the days of front page boasting about the number of people reading the paper but with copy sales down to a pitful 39,800 copies its no surprise,all we get these days is bundled up viewing figures and Tweeted hyperbole about “cracking value” “tub thumping” and bumper editions being “great value” but again,as evidenced by what?
A sharp sales decline such as this one is evidence enough for any board member or bean counter to move the focus and investment ( ice rinks and bad television channels aside) from print to alternate/electronic media which is clearly happening here with there being no obvious plans to invest money or resources into the news print side of the busienss.
looking ahead it would be interesting to forecast where these titles and the EDP in particular will be in say 5 years time?
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Steve – always thought provoking stuff.
‘the sales of printed regional newspapers have more than halved since 2005, and could shrink by at least as much again by 2025 if we’re lucky – but perhaps by far, far more.’
Spot on – except double the fall in sales and halve the time period! And how about an end of year prediction on what the regional media landscape will look like this time in 2016?
How many ‘big’ players will be left standing? And is it time to stick the Nil By Mouth sign above JP’s bed? No one else seems to be talking about the current 50p share price (which must make them the equivalent of 1p at pre-consolidation prices) and a £50 million market capitalisation.
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I’m glad you mentioned The Bolton News. It would be interesting to see that 2005 figure – 45,000 at a guess. And 11,157 today. I notice that The Bolton News registered itself for a multiplatform ABC in September!
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I think we know where the EDP will be in five year’s time, employee x. RIP EDP.
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So my old employer the Manchester Evening News now sells (or gives away) just shy of 55,000 a day, serving a Greater Manchester population of 2.7m. That means the newspaper is reaching roughly 2 per cent of its market. We used to call it the ‘friend dropping in’ but to most the newspaper is now a total stranger.
Of course the MEN is recording fantastic web traffic. And at this rate of print decline, we will find out soon enough whether digital alone is a sustainable business model.
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Interesting to note that using these figures (I only used the £0.45p &£0.80p cover prices for this comparison) the EDP is the only one to increase revenue.
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No big shock, is it, since the management of most, if not all, newspapers, have abandoned print (more or less) for digital. Which of course means that the quality of print declines, which means there’s less readers and blah de blah, until print is taken out the back and shot to put it out of its misery.
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At the current rate of rapid decline for the EDP and bearing in mind that there are no obvious signs or communications of any investment in this or any other newspaper title and that all the emphasis is into non newsprint areas ( yes including the ridiculous ice skating rink in Norwich and the god awful and costly Mustard tv ) I forecast it will no longer exist in its current format by the end of 2016 and in any format by the end of 2017.
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How much do cover price rises affect sales?
Only ancedotal evidence is that I stopped buying Radio Times when it went up to £1.20 a week – now it’s £2. Why pay £2 when you can get the same (basic) information for free in a Saturday paper?
And likewise, my weekend newspaper habits have dramatically shrunk now that a tabloid is 90p and the broadsheets are looking at the £3 mark.
Surely the success of the Independent’s i newspaper should be showing the local industry the way forward?
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I agree with @steve that double the decline in half the time , that should be a slogan fit the EDP, is a more likely picture.
One of the earliest signs of the company leaving the EDP and EN to wilt in the vine was the removal of the branding of these titles from the front of the building, the rest had followed in quick succession; falling copy sales, quality staff being moved on, the introduction of the dire Investigations unit which just about sums up how bad the reportage has become there these days and the money being spent in anything but newspapers on the group.
Yet the ceo cones in all find blacking and tells everyone that Archant will become THE leading regional news group in the uk and thst it will be the place people will want to work at, a year on I’ll bet he’s wishing he’d had a proper look round first.
Record low copy sales with no sign or possibility of increasing meaning it’s only a matter of time
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Interesting read. Would be worthwhile someone doing a comparison of readership figures and total population in the circulation area. That would really shake things up. Suspect the Express and Star would probably come out on top given Wolverhampton is one of the smaller areas covered by these 10.
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Apologies
It should of course read ” …comes in all guns blazing ”
Oh for the days of proof readers!
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It’s not quite game over – but the ref is certainly looking at his watch…
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@stevedyson, another point to bear in mind is how the digital newcomers have looked at the newspaper industry’s revenue streams and done a hefty amount of cherry picking.
Property ads, motors and classifieds have been snatched from newspapers almost overnight, giving readers still fewer reasons to buy a paper.
The digital newcomers aren’t in the news media so don’t invest all that money in journalism. And it means papers lack a decent war chest to get out the hole they are in.
In the rush to get online, newspapers have failed to make the most of their advertising ‘assets’ and have been punished for their wrong-headed business model.
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I think Steve’s prediction (if that is what it is) is incredibly optimistic. Although it’s tempting to think that the downward trend will continue at the same pace, it won’t.
Here’s the factors that will increase the decline exponentially.
1. The damage that companies have done to their products by cutting journalists has been massive. They have now gone well past critical mass and there is no way back.
2. Out of area printing has had a massive effect on the relevance of that paper to it’s readers. Earlier deadlines make the news out of date immediately and this news is further dated by a two-hour (or more) journey of the paper from the print plant.
3. The age demographic has to be taken into account. The vast majority of newspaper buyers are elderly. Death is inevitable. In the past there was a certain amount of ‘top up’ but not any more.
4. Rising cover prices (massively above inflation) at a time when most people are struggling to make ends meet.
5. A policy of publishers (Johnston Press is a great example) not allowing their editors (do they still have editors) to challenge local councils has alienated the public massively.
I could go on . . .
I remember the period when the used car salesmen, welders, electricians etc etc moved into the industry and took up advertising posts at a time when advertising was so easy to sell they immediately looked like saviours. Newspaper managements listened to these imposters and ignored the views of editors and journalists. These are the same people who thought the Internet was a cash cow that needed to be nurtured at the expense of print.
You reap what you sow.
Harry
PS The above is the optimistic version.
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I guess we all knew that newspaper sales and resultant ad revenues were in decline but it’s staggering to see just how severe and rapid the decline has been in so short a period of time.
I assume the decline has been consistent ? Or has there been an increase or slowdown in the last five years?
Certainly in Norfolk the demise of both Norwich dailies has been a jaw dropping one but when you see how Ill considered the decisions being made are and how much old thinking there is in the place it hasn’t really surprised anyone.
Couple this with an arrogance that ‘people will always buy the EDP’ ,no money being invested in papers merely some window dressing, and the picture becomes more complete.
I too think that the end of the road for the EDP will be quicker than anticipated and in answer to “employee X ” I think it will have ceased to exist well before 2025
And not even a free pull out pets adfeat can save it
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Fear not Steve. I’m sure that somewhere in Trinity Mirror a suit is already drafting a statement telling us that this is all good news and the demise of print is to be celebrated!
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Suedehead your’re right about property ads, motors ads etc. Rival, non newspaper comapnies like RightMove and Autotrader muscled into the market 10-15 years ago and did a better job than newspapers’ token attempts to compete with them. For instance Johnston Press’s badly designed and hard to navigate Property and Motors websites were and still are a disgrace. The search functions were appalling – JP handed the market to the new opposition on a plate. They’ve only got themselves to blame for not ensuring they had a share of the cake.
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I think the switch to overnight production is incredibly blinkered. By the time people get to sit down and read a morning paper (lunchtime at the earliest), most have probably already seen more up-to-date news on social media. So who would want to read what was on yesterday’s early evening news 24 hours later?!
Surely an evening paper, providing more indepth coverage of the day’s events would be preferable – and a welcome change from staring at a screen all day?
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I think that even if they reduced the cover price of the EDP that too many people have already walked away with no intention of coming back and too few potential new buyers are interested in being tempted to pay for ‘news’ they can readily get elsewhere- as it happens- and for free.
So to actually increase the cover price is one of the most bizarre and ridiculous decisions they’ve made….. aside from the jokers who gave Mustard tv the thumbs up!
Just why they think people who currently pay a price for it will pay even more and that those who don’t buy it suddenly will is either arrogant, naive or both.
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It would be interesting to see what the decline in EDP/Evening News circulation figures has been (over the last five years) since one editor was appointed for both titles.
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Speaking to the young editor of an evening newspaper dating back 130 years the other day, she explained that her news team (once 80 strong) now serves every title in the publishing centre, the priority (first and last) is web news, and that she has to ‘fight and beg’ to get stories set aside for her title. Given no one pays to read internet content, and this particular title is now selling a third of what it sold 15 years ago, it is difficult to see how regional print evening titles will survive unless there is a change of strategy. Tragic.
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“I think the switch to overnight production is incredibly blinkered. By the time people get to sit down and read a morning paper (lunchtime at the earliest), most have probably already seen more up-to-date news on social media. So who would want to read what was on yesterday’s early evening news 24 hours later? Surely an evening paper, providing more in-depth coverage of the day’s events would be preferable – and a welcome change from staring at a screen all day?”
Thank you, Mark. You have summed it up perfectly.
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My son is a very bright chap in his thirties. He never reads a newspaper, national or local. All his news/info comes from his laptop or his phone. Picking up a paper would be alien to him.
We need to face the fact that the print media is in terminal decline. Its traditional readers are dying off. My son sees a newspaper as cumbersome, messy, inconvenient and (relatively) expensive. What’s more, it takes up space and needs to be thrown away. Why bother?
There’s another factor that is killing the traditional press. We are living in a dumbed-down society in which concentration spans have been severely curtailed by the soundbite media. Put bluntly, we are a nation of morons – and morons don’t read a lot. They watch trashy TV instead because it makes no demands of them.
Very sad, but undeniably true.
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It’s like watching the guild of candle makers complaining about the light bulb. Some of you need to find a productive hobby.
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Yeah carts – put people still need candles when the lights go out.
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Undoubtedly true, Brassington. The Sun and Daily Star have done much to undermine the reputation of journalists in the eyes of the public.
What gets me is how the BBC and independent television can show the most ghastly clinical details in their crime dramas and murder mysteries (with great relish), yet when it comes to news reporting from wars such as Syria the fallen are always pixilated out.
It would be unthinkable for the BBC to show a dead British from one of our numerous conflicts.
In the Second World War the bodies of even allied soldiers were shown in cinema news footage, but Hollywood films always sanitised war, cutting out the gory bits.
Is there some subliminal fancy footwork going on here by the BBC and others?
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Surely price rises are underplayed when looking at the decline. The price of these papers today should be around 45p taking inflation into account.
It’s far from the only factor of course but pricing, allied to the fact that you can read almost every word of my local, the Liverpool Echo, online for free, can’t be helping.
And whoever redesigned the Echo should be ashamed OF themselves with the random capitalised words THAT seem to be chosen more TO fit the space rather than FOR emphasis.
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Ex poster
You’re right about the unrealistic price of the paper but also the ad rates, people are expected to pay the same if not more, for a paper which in the case of the EDPs 44% fewer readers yet the rates have not been reduced to reflect this greatly reduced audience they reach.
they know that if the rate was cut to reflect the shrunken audience yet with huge overheads due to out of control costs particularly in the management side of the ad dept. they would soon go bust
They must be hoping businesses don’t cotton on to how few copies are being sold hence the bundling up of readerships that fudge just how bad their sales figures are
To think sakes are so bad it’s come to that
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I’ve come to realise, after many, many years as a print journalist, that when you’re sitting in a cafe, enjoying your daily newspaper, and the moment dawns that no one else is doing so, then the game is up.
The only true newspaper I would buy these days for value is the International New York Times.
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It’s sad to see the EDP tweeting about hashtag ‘value’ and warning anyone with a ( I kid you not ) ‘ porcelain doormat’ to beware as the papers so heavy when it drops through the letterbox (I know, Partridge would be proud) in an attempt to convince readers to buy the Saturday paper by talking it up ,presumably the thinking being that if you tell people something enough times they’ll believe it , you can almost smell the desperation in the air.
It just emphasises that they really have nothing left to offer if hyperbole is being used as a last resort
Can I suggest improving the papers content and letting readers judge fur themselves mr editor?
But looking at how few people now but the EDP I think they already have
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Interesting that Ted Ferris should mention the New York Times. Its publisher is on record as saying there will be no print edition of the NYT by the year 2050. However, I think print’s extinction will come long before that.
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