Emmet Oliver in today’s Irish Times reports on a massive dive in sales figures for the (Irish) Daily Mail. This follows on from the recent news of huge loses made in the company’s Irish operations.
The newspaper, which launched in February 2006 had figures of over 82,000 in March but this has now dropped down to 54,641 for June.
Interestingly Oliver states that advertisers are looking for a greater emphasis on Ireland before they are willing to part with their cash; something that I suggested is a big part of the problem for the publication last week. I am curious however; (I am not a buyer of the publication) but I am not sure if Irish-focused adverts are a fixture just yet, I recall at launch a report (see bottom line) that the company would be using its UK ads for the time being instead; perhaps someone could clear this up.
The fact that “Several Associated executives believe the daily edition suffers from a lack of identification with its sister paper, Ireland on Sunday” also suggests a level of dilussion within the company; surely they realise there’s more to attracting readers than merging the names (look at The Sun/News of the World; it isn’t a problem there!). The funny thing is that the (Ireland) on Sunday is the more successful of the two publications, so wouldn’t logic dictate that the daily edition should be renamed in like with the IoS rather than vice versa? Surely by renaming the more popular paper after the less popular one you risk destroying both brands?