Below is publisher response to the latest ABC regional figures, from Herald & Time Group and Kent Messenger Group.
Herald & Times Group
Herald and Times Group’s audience is growing faster than ever before, despite recent doom and gloom reports of newspaper print sales’ decline.
National Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures released today show that while the average print copy sales for The Herald have dropped by 9.8%, the digital audience for its online counterpart Heraldscotland.com has risen by 66% to a monthly average of 1,425,123 unique visitors for July to December 2013 against 857,981 for the same period in 2012.
In the case of The Evening Times, average print sales figures are down by 15.7% from July to December 2013 but monthly digital audiences have risen by 79.4% to 442,291 unique visitors for July to December 2013 against 246,515 for the same period in 2012.
The Group’s own total audience (print and digital) data shows The Herald has grown by 40.59 % to 2.127 million and The Evening Times’ total audience (print and digital) has risen by 32.4% to 995k in January 2014 versus January 2013.
Digital revenue has also grown by 19% over the last financial year (end December 2013). Herald and Times Group now has more digital paying subscribers than paying print subscribers as it consciously focuses on offering multi-platform news options to readers and cross-platform advertising opportunities to advertisers.
Speaking on the business strategy which has seen Herald and Times Group develop into one of the largest and fastest-growing media businesses in Scotland, managing director Tim Blott said, “The changing face of news consumption is making platforms less relevant than the content they deliver.”
Tim, who is also president of the Scottish Newspaper Society, continued: “Doom and gloom stories of newspapers’ demise are way off the mark. It’s time to focus on revenue and audience growth across all platforms and drop the commentators’ outdated preoccupation with print”.
The national Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures for regional newspaper print circulations were published at on Wednesday 26th February. Global media trends have seen a steady decline in print newspaper circulation over the last two decades as audience behaviours have altered in line with the technological landscape.
With the realities of media fragmentation, a long recession and the proliferation of free content online, this has inevitably caused speculation on the imminent extinction of printed newspapers.
But managing director Tim Blott said, “I’ll print newspapers for so long as people want to buy them - and they continue to have a distinct and enduring market - but our projected revenue stream is all about multi-platform access now.”
Speaking after the ABC figures were released, Tim Blott commented that to focus on one aspect of a changing industry is completely missing the point. He said: “The influence wielded by quality news providers such as the Herald & Times Group has in fact never been greater.”
“The fact is that online subscription revenue models are working and that overall digital revenues are growing.”
“We’ve got to move away from prophesising the death of newspapers, and instead look to the future and how business models are changing to better serve our changing audience behaviours. Future audience growth and total revenue potential looks more exciting than has been the case for a very long time.”
Kent Messenger Group
KM Group's KentOnline network saw its audience increase by almost 94% in 12 months, today's ABC figures have revealed.
The family-owned publisher has posted an ABC for July to December 2013 of 914,280 unique monthly browsers. That is a 93.9% year-on-year and 43.4% period-on-period increase.
The huge growth comes after a similar success story for KentOnline in the previous reporting period, when unique browsers grew by 41% - making it the country's fastest-growing regional news network at the time.
At the same time, KM Group has seen its total paid-for newspaper circulation drop by just 4% period-on-period, whilst the number of free titles it distributes grew by 3%.
KM Group editorial director Ian Carter said: "We believe these figures show that you can rapidly develop your digital portfolio whilst maintaining high-quality print titles.
"Our newspapers are a hugely important part of our portfolio, and we are unique in having launched two successful paid-for titles in the past two years, but these figures show we are rapidly changing our business to meet the needs of our audience.
"Our online and print audience, combined with our network of kmfm radio stations, give us unrivalled penetration across Kent."
KM Group's portfolio includes the Kent Messenger, the UK's biggest-selling weekday weekly newspaper. Its Medway Messenger edition is the current EDF Weekly Newspaper of the Year.
