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Trinity Mirror halts monthly print-only ABC reports

ABClogoA newspaper publisher is changing the way it reports the monthly sales figures of its regional daily and Sunday titles.

Trinity Mirror has ceased submitting figures from 14 of its papers for the ABC regional newspapers monthly report, which are normally published on the first Friday of each month.

Instead, the company’s monthly print figures will now be included alongside the ABC monthly multi-platform reports, which records each title’s print and online figures.

Trinity Mirror was the only regional publisher to submit reports monthly instead of semi-annually, which it began doing in May 2013.

Titles for which monthly reports were submitted included the Birmingham Mail, South Wales Echo, Coventry Telegraph, North Wales Daily Post, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Liverpool Echo, Sunday Echo, Manchester Evening News, Newcastle Chronicle, Sunday Sun, Sunday Mercury, Teesside Gazette, The Journal, Western Mail and Wales on Sunday.

A Trinity Mirror spokesperson said: “We have realigned the publication of our ABC regional figures with the rest of the industry.”

9 comments

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  • August 7, 2015 at 3:43 pm
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    Well what a surprise, nothing like fudging the old numbers and grouping them up with digital to confuse the masses.
    This says all we need to know about how dire the copy sales figures are and any potential or existing advertiser will see through this in minutes.
    .

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  • August 7, 2015 at 4:03 pm
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    What a surprise….not. The downward slide of Trinity print titles has become an unnecessary monthly bloodbath. Best try to cover it up as much as possible now.

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  • August 7, 2015 at 5:59 pm
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    I’d say smoke and mirrors but that implies some subtlety…

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  • August 7, 2015 at 8:46 pm
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    the first sign of a newspaper group ashamed of how bad their print figures are and using smoke and mirrors to confuse the masses.
    No credible business person or switched on media buyer falls for this bundling up, if anything it alerts them to how bad the numbers are.
    Talk about treating customers and advertises like idiots

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  • August 7, 2015 at 11:30 pm
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    Surely this will only allow for the steep declines to be highlighted even more dramatically?

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  • August 9, 2015 at 12:29 pm
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    Aha, my favourite feat of mathematical prestidigitation. Mix up all the numbers so no-one is really sure what’s what (though a positive spin will be put on them each time they’re announced) and you have a cheery narrative that points to unfolding success and happy days ahead. Except the happy days are those of Samuel Beckett’s play of the same name – characters buried in the sticky stuff up to their waists in Act I, up to their necks in Act II. There isn’t an Act III.

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  • August 10, 2015 at 11:22 am
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    If ever there was an example of “don’t shoot the messenger” this is surely it!
    I don’t know what made them think publishing declining figures month by month was such a good idea in the first place. At least this way you only get to read the bad news twice a year.

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  • August 10, 2015 at 9:07 pm
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    Just doesn’t fool anyone , media buyers and astute business people not simply buying on rate will still want to know how nah copies are sold. Even the old chestnut rpc doesn’t hold water, it’s how many copies are brought not how many people clicked onto a website that is the question people will want answers to before investing in what clearly are dying papers, if they were anything other then the editors crowing about them and the sales reps would be told what guff to cobe out with
    If they really think this way of “bundling up to cover up”fools anyone then they’re even more out of touch than I thought they were.
    Talk about treating people like idiots

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  • August 11, 2015 at 8:01 am
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    I’ll bet the ad men and meeeja lot at TM are patting themselves on the back for coming up with this little ruse but as has been said previously it will fool no one, will alienate people and indicates a mandatory print and web sales package for advertisers which will be something else for the reps to moan about but in this case wholly justified.
    Whoever thought this would be the answer to whitewashing abysmal sales figures clearly hasn’t a clue about how the business world operates

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