Australian mX mixed results
Free afternoon daily mX by leading publisher News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) is showing mixed readership results for the 12 months April 2007 - March 2008.
In Sydney where the paper was launched in 2001, mX had 88,000 readers against 91,000 in the comparable period in 2006-2007. In Melbourne the drop was even more, from 147,000 to 131,000.
Only the Brisbane edition, launched in 2007, showed some growth from 29,000 daily readers (March - September 2007) to 35,000 in 2007-2008. Compared to the full year 2007 there was no growth in Brisbane.
These results suggest either a market saturation or a deliberate strategy by the publisher to keep circulation at a certain level. This might be explained by the fact that News Corp also publishes paid newspapers in all markets.
Paid papers The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Herald Sun and Courier-Mail saw their readership increase compared to the same 2006-2007 period. Daily Telegraph was stable. Compared to the full year 2007 only the Sydney Morning Herald and Courier-Mail had more readers. (Roy Morgan)