Staid papers suffer as gossip sells

By Yow Hong Chieh

December 31, 2010

The circulation of Berita Harian has dropped by 28.7 per cent over the past year. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 — Newspaper circulation in the country maintained its downward slide this year as readers continue to shun hard news in government-controlled titles for more sensationalist tabloids.

Circulation of local media mainstays — The Star, New Straits Times, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian — has fallen over the past five years, in some cases dramatically so. Scandal sheets, however, remain largely popular and in some cases far outselling more traditional rags which helped advertising expenditure grow 22 per cent to RM3.5 billion for the first half of 2010.

Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures for the full year ended June 30, 2010 show The Star’s circulation dropping from 295,479 to 286,409 (-3.1 per cent), the New Straits Times from 120,770 to 109,341 (-9.5 per cent), Utusan Malaysia from 181,346 to 170,558 (-5.9 per cent) and Berita Harian from 183,187 to 160,597 (-28.7 per cent).

Sales of the four newspapers have been falling these past five years, with all but The Star registering drops of 20 per cent or more between 2005 and 2009.

So-called “light reading” newspapers like Malay-language Harian Metro and Kosmo, on the other hand, continue to go from strength to strength, posting higher sales numbers this past year on top of already impressive circulation numbers.

Kosmo was the biggest winner with a massive 32.9 per cent jump in circulation from 129,633 last year to 172,252 this year. Harian Metro also managed to chalk up an impressive 11.8 per cent rise in circulation to 378,354.

The weekend editions of both newspapers, Kosmo Ahad and Metro Ahad, saw similar increases of 35.1 per cent and 11.5 per cent, respectively.

All Chinese-language papers managed slight single-digit bumps in sales this past year, with the exception of Guang Ming Daily which slipped by 2.67 per cent to 95,158.

Circulation for Sin Chew Daily went up from 374,757 to 382,578 (2.1 per cent), China Press from 159,034 to 160,841 (1.1 per cent) and Oriental Daily News from 97,882 to 103,827 (6.1 per cent).

Free paper The Sun recorded a 4.38 per cent boost in circulation from 287,935 to 300,512.

Bulk sales — the practice of selling bundles of copies at discounted rates for distribution in schools, airplanes and hotels — now make up a slightly higher proportion of average net sales per publishing day for mainstream papers.

Reduced rate sales for The Star went up from 8 to 10 per cent of total sales, the New Straits Times from 23 per cent to 27 per cent, Utusan Malaysia from 6 per cent to 7 per cent and Berita Harian from 13 per cent to 19 per cent.

In contrast, bulk sales for Kosmo, Harian Metro and Chinese-language dailies constituted one per cent or less of daily average sales.