Australian newspaper sales down in Q1

Posted by Erina Lin on May 14, 2010 at 3:09 PM

Australian newspaper circulations in Q1 continued to go down due to lack of news, declining consumer spending and tight marketing budgets, according to the latest data from the the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Australian Financial Review reported.

National and metropolitan titles have the circulation down by an average of 3 percent year-over-year, Media Guardian reported.

Out of 25 capital city and national newspapers, only Fairfax Media Ltd.'s Sunday Age had its sales up, by 0.5 percent. Others' combined sales declined 3.1 percent to 20.7 million, Bloomberg reported.

The hardest hit went to Australian Financial Review, with its weekday edition down 8.6% to 75,624 copies and the Saturday edition down 6.6 percent to 91,735.

The Australian's weekday sales decreased by 4.4 percent to 132,690 copies, while the weekend was down 3.7 percent to 304,548 copies, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The weekday sales for the Sydney Morning Herald slipped 1.7 percent to 209,011, while The Age's weekday fell 4.1 percent to 189,500. Both title lost more than 5 percent sales on Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph in Sydney dropped 3 percent to 349,635 on weekdays and 1.1 percent to 331,272 on Saturday.