Tom Sykes, how do you like them Apples?

Someone told me last week that they’re not going to start a blog now because Wired said blogging is dead. I think the blogging world has really lost out with that voice prefering not to be heard. No it wasn’t Tom Sykes.

For Tom I’d just like to point to this link from Google Trends:
Irish Examiner read less than an Irish blog aggregator

That’s a simple blog aggregator for just some of the Irish Blogs out there. Some.

Shame IrishBlogs.ie got fucked in July by Google:
Irish Examiner read less than an Irish blog aggregator

But hopefully you get my point. I’m reminded of that guy from the Indo group telling people at the UCC Journo soc that the kids (anyone under 35) that are leaving papers in their droves* will come back as they get older and get confused by the modern world and need a bit of conservatism and stability. No they won’t, you’re not the Catholic church lads. You don’t offer that heaven lie.

*Note for Cian Ginty. Yes droves. Like I said before. When I said newspaper readership was going down and you pointed out how wrong I was by pointing to declining readerships** of the Indo and the Examiner***, that actually meant I was, you know, right.

**Another note for Cian. When a population goes up and readership remains stable or declines (you know like you proved in your own post when you failed to prove me wrong), guess what that means?

****One last note to Cian. See, I never mentioned National readership when I did that blog post on newspapers. You just jumped to that conclusion. I’m sure that was the blogger part of your persona and not the trained journalist part of your persona coming through there. Of course.

7 Responses to “Tom Sykes, how do you like them Apples?”

  1. To Both Cian & Damian,
    am I missing something here?
    How can you decide on national readership levels by referring to (a) individual titles or (b) ABC stats.
    any given individual title cannot be taken as a guide to national consumption, and from looking at the ABC stats, they seem to exclude for some reason all the british titles on our shelves. That’s probably half the titles in my local garage, so the ABC seems inadequate.

    Is there another measure out there that will settle the discussion as to the current state of play?

  2. Branedy says:

    Graphing data is a great way to detect anomalies, The drop in July reporting reeks of data loss, or a change in reporting and does NOT constitute an accurate reading.

  3. Cian says:

    Hello… first off, sorry if I came across as aggressive in my reply post to yours.

    I was just pointing out that, as it stands, the Irish national newspaper market remains “reasonably stable” compared to the US and UK markets which are very much so appear to be in headlong downfall (and how much of that is a move to the same outlets on the web. Not worth the same cash, but still).

    I’d like it know for sure if Ireland is going to follow the US and UK, but as the data available stands, I can’t say if it’ll happen or when it will happen or if it’ll be as sharp of a drop off. I would guess it’s more likely ‘when’ than ‘if’, but it’s not happening now, and unquestionably not happening at the same rate.

    “I never mentioned National readership”

    Sorry again — if you think I implied you did, I did not mean to do so. I split the local and national markets myself as there is a real split there. On local/regional newspapers I said: “It’s harder to examine this market due to the influx of local freesheets around the country – most of which are not included in ABC’s report”.

    On newspapers, or even the media in general, and young people — I’d compare many media outlets’ lack of action now to the Government’s lack of action before the downturn when they knew it was coming.

    A recent hard news example: After the students’ protest to the Dail a few weeks ago I talked to a few students who felt the coverage was lacking or too overshadowed by the over medical card protest on the same day. I’m afraid I wasn’t in media monitoring mode are the time myself, but even the perception is dangerous for newspapers.

    “When a population goes up and readership remains stable or declines” … A population going up and a market remaining stable could mean a lot of things (for example, people who have come from other countries may not be interisted in the publications’ content, or, to an extrema, may not be able to read English at all). But on the other side, maybe if there was not the increase in population we would be seeing a sharp decline now?

    Just to add to John O’Connor’s questions: Why you are comparing one newspaper and a blog aggregator?

  4. Damien says:

    @Cian

    1. If you followed the link you’d find a piece from Bernie Goldbach discussing what Tom Sykes was talking about and why comparing the Examiner to a blog aggregator is relevant.

    2. I never said the market remained stable or declined, I said readership. BIG difference. The market is totally not stable.

    3. If you checked the CSO stats you might realise that it is not Johnny Foreigner who has impacted on our population increases. The Irish population has gone up because more Irish people have been born and less Irish people have been dying.

    4. It’s disappointing to see the Daily Mail auto-excuse being used. If you checked the same CSO stats you’d realise that the people from other countries that live here and stay here are British to a large extent. I heard they can speak and read English.

  5. Cian says:

    1. Seen the link now. Sorry, somehow looked at the Goggle link but not that (that would be the human part of me making the mistake and not any one side). It looks like nothing but blog bashing on Tom Sykes’ part. Must looking into him further, he’s joining my mental list of luddites in the Irish media.

    2. In the view of what is happening nationally and internationally, the newspaper market is reasonably stable. The regional/local paper market is in a flux which can currently be linked to the new entrants into the local newspaper market more so than a decline. For nationals I’d interchange market and readership here… for locals, overall readership may even be up as while you’ll have people switching from paid to freesheets, you’ll also have many picking up both (without data it’s hard to say).

    3. I was just listing those as examples of reaons, and remember I also added “But on the other side, maybe if there was not the increase in population we would be seeing a sharp decline now?”

    4. Again they were just examples of reasons, not meaning to be a full list. Furthermore, my first example was “may not be interisted in the publications’ content”. And before I said “may not be able to read English at all” I included “to an extrema” — ie that would be down the list in a fuller list of possibly reasons. For ex-pats from Britain a possibly reason why they have not started reading Irish papers is that British papers are readily available here.

  6. Cian says:

    And the spelling mistakes in my last post are due to the hour of the night. 🙂

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