'Irish Times' has 325,000 average daily readership

THE IRISH TIMES  had an average 325,000 daily readers in 2007, new figures show.

The Irish Independent had an average readership of 570,000 during the same period, according to figures from the Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS).

The previous set of figures, which used a new sampling base for the first time, showed The Irish Times had an average readership of 318,000 and the Irish Independent had 590,000 for the 12 months to the end of June 2007.

Direct comparisons between the figures for the 2006 and 2007 calendar years cannot be made as the new sample was used first in the figures for the second half of 2006. The first direct like-for-like comparison under the new sample can be made when the next set of JNRS figures - for the 12 months to the end of June 2008 - are published in September.

The JNRS figures show that 9.3 per cent of adults read The Irish Times in 2007. The newspaper scored higher than the Irish Independent for readers among the affluent AB audience and in the Dublin market in 2007. The Irish Times had an average of 148,000 AB readers, 45.5 per cent of the newspaper's readers, compared to 102,000 for the Irish Independent , which represented 17.9 per cent of its readers. The Irish Times had on average 173,000 readers in Dublin compared to 144,000 for the Irish Independent.

The Irish Examiner had a readership of 267,000 in 2007.

Almost 3.1 million, or 88.4 per cent of adults, read a newspaper during the week. Two million people, or 57.7 per cent of all adults, read a daily newspaper.

Among the daily tabloids, the Irish Daily Star had the highest readership in 2007 with 441,000, followed by the Irish Sun with 309,000, Irish Daily Mirror with 204,000 and Irish Daily Mail with 117,000. The Evening Herald's 2007 figure was 315,000.

The Sunday Independent had a readership of 1,019,000 in 2007, making it the most read publication that day, followed closely by the Sunday World with 922,000 and the Irish News of the World with 571,000. The Sunday Times had 363,000 readers, Sunday Tribune 218,000 and Sunday Business Post 159,000.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times