News Corp’s The Australian has seen its Monday to Friday print circulation slip below the 100,000 as rival Fairfax Media masthead, The Australian Financial Review, dropped below 50,000.
News Corp’s The Australian has seen its Monday to Friday print circulation slip below the 100,000 as rival Fairfax Media masthead, The Australian Financial Review, dropped below 50,000.
According to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, national broadsheet The Australian had a March to June / Monday to Friday print circulation of 99,027 – a year-on-year decline of 2.50% – down from 101,615 in the same period last year.
Andrew Jaspan, editor of The Conversation and former editor of The Age, suggested that the figure is meaningless and “nobody really cares anymore” about the circulation figures.
“It’s kind of ‘so what’? What does below or above 100 really mean anymore?” he said. “Nobody really cares anymore, we’ve moved into a post-circulation age, nobody really cares or knows if these numbers are robust or not.
“That’s just the trajectory all newspapers are on. There’s a general decline everywhere to reading content on paper. Should we be surprised? No. Does it matter? Not really, it’s just a trend.”
A News Corp spokesperson focused on the broadsheet’s EMMA, which measures total audience, results when asked if the decline was a disappointment.
“The EMMA results show The Australian has improved its print audience by 3.6% compared with last year. In addition, the ABC data shows digital subscriptions are up almost 12% compared with last year. The Australian has a total paid audience of over 178,000 – this base is growing and transitioning,” the said.
It was a bigger drop for Fairfax’s AFR, which saw its circulation slide by 12.80% from 57,243 to 49,900.
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Miranda Ward, Mumbrella
