This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Newspaper circulation in Ireland continued to fall in the first half of 2016. Overall, according to the ABC audit, the daily titles lost 5.7% of their sales while the Sundays lost 6.3%.

The Irish Independent, the best-selling daily, shed 6.4% of its sale, compared to the same period the year before, to record an average of 102,537 a day over the course of the six months. The Irish Times was down by 5.5% to 72,011, and the Irish Examiner was down 6.7% to 30,964.

There were mixed fortunes for the red-tops. The Irish Daily Star saw its sale drop by 7.6% to 48,363 and the Irish Daily Mirror did even worse, falling by 11.3% to 38,355.

But the Irish Sun managed to increase its sale by 4.6% to 60,371, a rise that can be attributed to a substantial promotional initiative, including a period in June when it was selling at half its cover price.

By contrast, the Irish Daily Mail lost 6.1% year-on-year, selling an average of 45,552 copies a day.



The sales story was, in general, a little worse among the Sunday titles. Circulation of the Sunday Independent, Ireland’s largest-selling title, dropped to 199,210, which was 6.7% lower than in the first six months of 2015.



Similarly, sales of the Irish edition of the Sunday Times fell 6.4% to 77,455, but the Sunday Business Post did rather better, falling by 3.5% to 31,364.

Most of the tabloid Sundays performed very badly. The Irish Mail on Sunday fell 7.2% to 78,151; the Sunday World was down 8.9% to 162,938; and both the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People were down by 12.9%, to 26,628 and 9,878 respectively.

Once again, the Sun on Sunday bucked the trend by recording a 9% rise to sell an average of 57,820 over the January-to-June period.

In Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph’s headline sale was down 5% to 41,912 while the Irish News fell by 4.6% to 35,921.