Newspaper circulation on the slide

Both Fairfax and News Limited are suffering from a gradual shift away from newspaper publishing, with a slide in sales evident across all the major categories including the weekday, Saturday and Sunday publications.

Flagship titles across Australia like The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times, The Courier Mail and The Advertiser all experienced falls in readership, according to sales figures for the September half from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Among these titles, all but the Daily Telegraph experienced a fall in the Saturday category, while The Sunday Age was the only paper to secure a rise on a Sunday.

James Hooke, NSW managing director for Fairfax, attributes the downward movement to the impact of economic factors on some of the classified markets, but emphasises the structural changes that are progressively being implemented to improve circulation.

Newspapers exempt from the downward spiral included The Australian, up by 2.9 per cent, The Weekend Australian which rose by 1.6 per cent, as well as The Australian Financial Review, The Herald Sun and The West Australian, all inching up by 0.2 per cent, 0.1 per cent and 00.1 per cent respectively.

Notable newspaper publications that suffered a slide in circulation included The Canberra Times which was down by 3.6 per cent, The Age which dropped by 3.2 per cent, The Sydney Morning Herald which fell by 2.6 per cent, The Courier Mail which was down by 1.8 per cent, The Advertiser which dropped by 0.6 per cent and The Daily Telegraph which fell by 0.1 per cent.