Fairfax Media has seen disappointing results in the latest circulation figures, with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age seeing declines in its Monday to Friday print editions.
The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) is now averaging 95,733 sales per week, which is an 8.7% decline year-on-year, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The Age saw its weekday circulation decline 9.3%, dropping below 90,000 for the first time.
Fairfax chose not to submit its digital sales in this audit, with CEO Greg Hywood previously referring to the metric as an "incomplete measure".
In more positive news for the publisher, the weekend print editions fared better in the circulation results, with the SMH averaging more than 181,000 in sales and The Age 152,471. The same cannot be said for The Canberra Times, now selling 16,421 on weekdays and 25,571 on Saturdays.
The results align with Fairfax’s future plans to cull the weekday print editions of the SMH and The Age in favour for weekend papers.
Meanwhile, News Corp’s The Australian grew its digital subscriptions 10.4% year-on-year, making up for the 3.6% print circulation slide for its edition, taking it to 97,419 copies. The Australian has more than twice the circulation of Australian Financial Review at 48,009 copies – down 9.2%.
The Daily Telegraph saw its Monday to Friday print circulation slide, a decline of 7.1% year-on-year from 251,710 to 233,857. The Herald Sun weekly issues hit 317,517 copies. The Saturday edition of The Telegraph fell 6.7% and The Sunday Telegraph was down 8.2%.
Who and NW achieve growth
PacMag's Who Magazine and Bauer's NW are the only magazines to grow their sales in the turbulent category. Who Magazine grew its print sales figure by 0.7% to 82,789 and NW is up a fraction, reporting a 0.2% increase in total sales to 52,807.
Bauer’s Woman’s Day saw its circulation slide below 250,000 for the first time but still holds its status as the top magazine in terms of sales. However, It increased its digital subscriptions by 15% year-on-year.
Bauer’s OK title posted the largest print circulation declines, with sales dropping by 18.6% year-on-year from 59,022 to 48,029.
Pacific Magazines’ New Idea faced a print circulation decline, with the brand seeing a significant 15.3% year-on-year decline – slipping closer to 200,000 copies.
PacMags' That’s Life stayed in front of Bauer rival Take 5, despite a circulation drop of 7.8%.
Commenting on the ABC figures, Pacific Magazines CEO Gereurd Roberts says: “Just like our audiences, our brands are not one dimensional – circulation is only one metric and only part of the story in our business,” he said.
“Our audiences connect with our brands across all platforms, including social, site, apps and events, and their power and engagement across these touch-points must also be recognised within our discussions of the results today.
“When we combine our digital delivery with our print leadership, our strategic multi-platform solutions offer commercial partners incomparable reach into active and engaged online and offline audiences – and, more importantly, tangible results.”
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