Traditional printed magazines and newspapers may be dying – or at least seriously ill – but digital versions of the same publications appear to be catching on, with double-digit growth figures.
The latest report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) says that Monday-to-Saturday sales of national, metropolitan and regional print newspapers fell 6.9 percent in the three months to December 3, compared with the prior corresponding period. That was worse than the 5.9 per cent decline in the three months to September 30.
However figures from Australia’s two major publishers – Fairfax Media and News Ltd – showed average daily sales of Monday to Friday digital editions of The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age rose by 13.4 per cent, compared with the previous quarter.
Sales of Saturday digital editions for the three mastheads were up 19 per cent.
Newspaper Works CEO Tony Hale said the data showed consumers were willing to pay for quality journalism across publishing platforms. “The growth of digital subscriptions is now starting to offset the decline in print circulations, as illustrated by the one per cent increase in total sales of the mastheads which are reporting their digital figures,” he said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Fairfax said there have been more than one million downloads of its SMH and Age tablet apps since they were launched 19 months ago. The two apps had more 150,000 daily unique browsers, Fairfax said.
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