Newspapers circulation

Sibusiso Banda

Newspapers have always been one of the most relied on form of news for keeping the masses in formed on what is going on around them. But due to the recent technological advances in the information sector over the years, the print media has been an unsteady dwindling number the popularity and usage of the medium.

Recent circulation figures from the ABC point out that the South African media inflation has been running twice as much than the CPI of 6% while also pointing out a 16,9% decrease value and an increase 10.9% increase in the print rate.

While the Business, community and consumer category are leading the pack, daily news papers have been the worse. They performed poorly in the first quarter of delivering 16% less value than a year ago. Weekly newspapers were hit the least seating almost 7 percent in the print media inflation.

There’s no clear indication of what caused the above mentioned inflation figures, but there is division in term of expert attribution. That the opening of a virtual informative world is to blame while other say that the print media’s lack of a divisible plan in employing effective strategies in stepping up to the change information world is to be blamed.

Figures in the sector size show free newspapers as the graph leaders with circulation of more than 6 million ahead of weekend and dailies on 2, 4 and 1, 5 mark respectably.  Weekly and local newspapers are following the leaders by they are in the thousands graph.

The total media circulation has dropped by 140 000 copies when compared to the previous year. This is quite not a bad figure if try and compare the visible strong new media and digital mobile cell phone news devise that has exploded to over the years. Plus not forgetting the lack of foreign investors due the global economic down turn.

Newspaper Performance Relative to Economic Measures.

In tem of the trends, daily newspapers have been showing a circulation decline over the past four years. Circulation has declined annually by 5.5 % since 2008, which is equivalent to 414,000 copies. Total daily newspaper sales in South Africa have fallen from 1 386 504 in Q2 2011 to 1 373 377 in Q2 2012

Bizcommunity’s Gill Moodie has put together her analysis of the current newspaper decline this week, and she focused her efforts on three of the larger publications, the Cape Times, the Cape Argus, and the Mail and Guardian.

For the weekly Mail and Guardian, The paper is down to 46 518 total circulation in zhe second quarter (Q2) of 2012 compared with 48 016 in the same period last year – 34 293 single-copy sales this year compared with 37 407 last year.

On March 9 2012 The Argus which officially changed its format by not only giving its layout a “visually stimulating modernization” and changing from the broadsheet to about half the size of what it used to be but by also added a morning edition. They fell from 45 924 total circulation a year ago to 35 332 this year while single-copy sales experienced a lesser drop: from 20 861 a year ago to 19 744 this year.

The Cape Times fell from 43 950 total circulation a year ago to 37 948 this year (after holding steady and even showing increases in the 2011) while single-copy sales fell from 23 793 a year ago to 19 851 this year.

Perhaps these figures are a results of the ongoing trend of traditional main stream news papers turning digital especially with the introduction of technological gadget of iPod, IPod and desktop and mobile application’s market being introduced and consumers welcoming the advances.

In term of the language trend in daily newspapers, English titles have declined by 6.4% annually, 365, 000 copies, over the period while Afrikaans titles have declined by 4.4% annually, 64,000 copies, over the period. Its only Vernacular titles that have shown an increase of 3.3% annually, 15,000 copies, over the period. Isolezwe and Volksblad daily have shown significant Largest Growth of almost 5,5 percent.

Inland circulation declined annually by 6.3%, 315,000 copies over the period. Coastal circulation declined annually by 3.8%, 99,000 copies over the period