News Corp’s national daily The Australian has marked the end of its heavily-promoted 60th anniversary celebrations by lifting its cover price, responding to the harsh realities of what current editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn has called its “challenged business model”.
People buying a copy of Monday’s paper needed another coin before they could exit their retailer. The weekday newspaper price jumped 12.5% from $4.00 to $4.50. From Saturday, weekend customers need more than a $5 note as the price climbs 10% to $5.50.
See also: Editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn on The Australian at 60 – Past, present and the future
Two years since the last cover price increase
As over-the-counter sales of print products continue to decline, publishers use price rises to make up for lost revenue. The Weekend Australian telegraphed the rises to readers last Saturday.
The paper pointed out in its report about the impending increase – “Price rise but still great value.”
The increase alert also pointed out it’s not something that happens annually: “To ensure you continue to receive the high-quality journalism you have come to expect from us, we have had to increase the price of our print products for the first time in two years.”
How The Australian explained its Monday price rise
Adjusting the newspaper business model
Former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell recalled recently how Rupert Murdoch noted in 2009 that cover price increases would have to replace some of the revenue lost by declining ad revenue. Mitchell was speaking to another former editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, on the Sky News documentary about the national broadsheet released last month.
Host of the special, Chris Kenny, pointed out in that documentary The Australian only started charging for online content two years later, in 2011. Up until then, those readers hadn’t been contributing to the bottom line.
Those digital customers now also get video and audio plus breaking news in addition to the curated morning feed delivered online or via print if they choose.
The increased price of the print product must help motivate some of the remaining regular readers across to digital packages.
That offer for a 12-month commitment is now:
$8 weekly for Digital
$9 weekly Digital + The Weekend Australian paper delivered
$16 weekly Digital + The Australian paper six days a week delivered
A bonus for all those packages is full digital access to The Wall Street Journal.
The front page of Monday’s newspaper had a memorable photo to help soften the blow of the extra 50c. Even Nine Radio’s 3AW was talking up how good page one was.
How far have print sales fallen?
In the Sky News documentary, Rupert Murdoch guessed print newspapers could have another 15 years before they disappear completely.
Finding out the exact decline in Australia is not possible. It’s been many years since print circulations were reported.
Newsagents are one guide as to how the print retail market is falling. In the most recent Newsagency Benchmark results for the first half of calendar 2024, print sales were down an average of 10% YOY across surveyed retailers. The survey comes from Mark Fletcher’s newsXpress, which accesses data from 121 newsagents.
Fletcher has detailed often how poorly newspaper sales contribute to the business model of a newsagent. His most recent summary included figures for News Corp’s Victorian daily:
Newsagents make between 10% and 12.5% of the cover price. For the Herald Sun Monday to Friday, that’s .375 cents a copy. @ 50 copies a day, that’s $18.75. Considering the weekend cover price and sales, a medium size newsagency, selling 50 copies of the title each day will make under $7,000 a year in gross profit. Labour cost for managing the title over the year in that size business will be at least $4,500 while retail space will cost at least $2,000 without considering a premium for better positioning in-store.
Our print media suppliers have management practices that are out of date, rooted in the days when our channel was tightly regulated. These poor practices cost us money. They think their products drive valuable traffic for us. They don’t. They think they make good money for us. They don’t.
Print price comparisons
Getting several printed newspapers a day starts to get expensive. At Nine Publishing, The AFR Weekend also costs $5.50. The weekday newspaper is $5.00.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are $4.40 on weekdays, and $5.40 on Saturday.
The News Corp Australia metro dailies are a little cheaper, at $3 on weekdays and $4 on weekends.
Read Mediaweek‘s recent coverage of the 60th anniversary celebrations at The Australian.