Tag archives: circulation

“Die Burger’s almost like Riaan Cruywagen” says editor Bun Booyens

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Media24’s Die Burger joined an elite group of newspapers this year that are showing signs of arresting circulation decline, which is really something to crow about in this grim market.

As sales were falling across the board, the ABC circulation figures for the second half of last year showed that Die Burger – which has Western Cape and Eastern Cape editions (the latter grew out of Die Oosterlig) – was slowing its downwards trajectory. Then in the latest set of ABC figures – for the first quarter of 2013 – Die Burger (Western Cape) netted 51 516 compared with 51 232 in the same period of 2012. It’s Port Elizabeth-based Eastern Cape sister posted 10 721 circulation compared with 10 748 the corresponding period of the previous year.

So stability in a devastating quarter for newspapers, in which the Daily Sun lost 20% of circulation, The Star fell 14% and the Pretoria News shed 12%.

I’m sure the excellent reporting and run of exclusive breaks on the Oscar Pistorius story in the first quarter that Die Burger carried (from its sister paper Beeld) helped to buoy sales. And indeed, Die Burger’s Cape Town-based editor, Bun Booyens, is cautious about singing his newspaper’s praises.

“Let’s be sober about this. I think a lot of these are lapsed subscribers that we’ve won back,” he told Grubstreet last week. “We suffered some real subscriber damage with the Cycad software problem (Media24’s CRM programme that governed subscriptions and distribution). I suspect the gains we made were lapsed subscribers, among others, who we won back – which is in itself encouraging.”

ABC Analysis Q1 2013: Newspaper circulation decline continues

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period January 2013 – March 2013. Here are a couple of numbers that stood out in terms of newspaper circulations.

Daily newspapers

Beeld declined to 67,700 from 75,019 in the previous corresponding period. Pretoria News fell to 18,775 from 21,406. Sowetan held steady at 98,258 (compared to 98,128). The Star fell to 106,484 from 124,641.

The Cape Argus fell to 33,247 from 35,493, The Cape Times fell to 35,616 from 39,519. Die Burger (Eastern & Western Cape editions combined) rose sligtly to 62,237 from 61,980.

Daily News fell to 32,002 from 34,173. Isolezwe declined slightly to 116,186 from 117,266. The Witness fell to 19,001 from 20,222 and The Mercury fell to 31,025 from 32,098.

Business Day fell to 33,690 from 35,897. The Citizen fell to 63,854 from 68,632. The Times declined slightly to 142,117 from 142,111.

On the tabloid front the Daily Sun fell from 375,185 to 296,489 (it stood at 322,324 in Q4 2012). Son fell to 92,213 from 104,696

Analysis of 2012 Amps readership figures: what lurks beneath for SA newspapers?

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) The ABC circulation figures tell us that South African newspaper sales with the exception of the vernacular press are in a sustained decline but the Amps readership numbers – the full-year 2012 Amps were released last week – say that most newspaper titles have maintained their readership.

What gives here?

As we puzzle over the numbers, we know that newspapers have been hammered in developed markets – particularly in the US – and as online and cellphone usage spreads and deepens in SA, we all wonder if the downward move of print circulation will accelerate to match the trends overseas.

On the other hand, there is also the view that because we are an emerging market, print still has legs in this country – particularly in the vernacular press led by the fantastic success story of the isiZulu-language Isolezwe.

What actually is the state of the health of our newspapers?

I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between the ABC and Amps pictures but, first, let’s look at the main trends in the recently released 2012 Amps figures from the South African Audience Research Foundation.

Fast-to-change SA consumer mags are thriving

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Why is it that consumer magazines consistently outperform our newspapers in circulation figures these days?

Not that it’s plain-sailing for the magazine industry, as we saw in last week’s release of the fourth-quarter Audit Bureau of Circulations of SA (ABC) figures for 2012.

Just like newspapers, many magazine titles are suffering sales decline but it’s not across the board – there are more than a handful that are bucking the trend and some that are doing very well.

Take a look at these three graphs showing how consumer magazines have done over the past four years compared with daily and weekend newspapers. There is a slump in consumer magazines in the last half of 2012 but it is very different from the consistent downwards trend suffered by newspapers over the past four years.

ABC Analysis Q2 2012: Daily newspapers — Isolezwe breathing down The Star’s neck

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period April 2012 to June 2012. Total daily newspaper sales in South Africa fell from the 1,386,504 in Q2 2011 to 1,373,377 in Q2 2012.

Wine mag bets service content will pay when journalism didn’t

Wine magazine, the wine-focused consumer monthly published by RamsayMedia, will be publishing its last edition in September 2011, after nearly 20 years in print. The magazine has only turned an annual profit three times in its existence.

RamsayMedia MD Stuart Lowe says the group had been considering for many years now what to do about Wine magazine. For years it has been building a series of conciliary activities to extend the Wine brand, including books, wine tastings and expos. All these businesses made money, but never enough to offset the losses on the magazine side, says Lowe.

Publishers explain ABCs hits, misses

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) released the local print media’s 2011 first quarter circulation figures earlier this week and, as usual, it makes for interesting reading. A couple of figures really jump out as worth investigating.

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