For many years, Ireland has been one of the world’s foremost consumers of newspapers, and new readership statistics confirm that is still the case. According to the latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) more than 3 million people – or 87% of the adult population – are now regular newspaper readers.

The latest figures are sure to come as a fillip to the Irish newspaper industry, underlining again that in an era of unprecedented media choice, Irish consumers are still most likely to turn to their favourite newspaper for in-dept news and analysis.

The JNRS report for 2009 shows a total of 87.3% of adults who regularly read any newspaper, a slight increase over corresponding figures for last year. While some of the other categories – inlcuding reading daily and Sunday titles – were fractionally down, the industry will point to the crucial ‘any newspaper’ category as the true barometer of readership.

‘Clearly there is a huge appetite amongst Irish people for detailed analysis of all the issues facing the country’ said Frank Cullen of National Newspapers of Ireland. ‘That is what newspapers do best, it’s the main reason that people have such a strong relationship with their favourite newspaper, and it’s the key to our excellent readership levels.

‘There are of course other issues affecting our industry but these are commercial issues that every business in every sector is having to deal with right now,’ Mr Cullen went on.‘When it comes to readership, however we are as strong as ever – amongst the best in the world in fact – and we can be heartened by the latest JNRS data’

Of particular interest to advertisers and the advertising community, the new JNRS report contains a variety of information about newspapers and those who read them. Some highlights of the latest report include the following:

• 83.4% of 15-24 year olds read the average issue of a newspaper
• 54.3% of adults say they tend to try new products and services after seeing an advertisement
• 73.6% of men reguarly read the sports pages of the newspapers
• 55.9% of women like to read about food and drink

Over 7,000 interviews were conducted by Millward Brown Lansdowne for the readership survey amongst a representative sample of the adult population by personal in-home interviews, using a combination of face to face and self completion questionnaires.