Australian newspaper buyers have punished the national papers, The Australian Financial Review and The Australian in the latest audit period, but basically spared the rod on their state-based competitors.

In fact it was a the rotten year and quarter for the Australian Financial Review, and a poor one for News Ltd’s The Australian.

And, overall the year to September, and especially the September quarter, were also rough for News Ltd papers.

The irony is that both The AFR and The Australian (especially the latter) have spent much of the past couple of years poking holes in each other’s staff by raiding, and at times seeming to take each other more seriously than readers.

The relative performance of the two papers can be seen in the way they treated the circulation figures this morning:

The AFR buried the figures in the media pages today (on Page 43, at the bottom) under the anodyne headline: “Newspaper sales still weak, but rate of decline slows”. Well yes and no.

The state-based papers did OK, the two nationals were not so good, bad in fact; the Sundays had a rough time as well in some cases. The AFR buried its terrible figures in the story and its publisher, Michael Gill, tried to blame the economy.

“Circulation impacts were concentrated in CBD areas, especially in Sydney and coincided with the contraction of many businesses. Our more recent sales indicate an improving trend, on improving investor activity”.

Well, that’s a load of tosh. The economy was much weaker at the start of the year (markets were weaker at the start of 2008 and again at the end of the same year) and The AFR didn’t experience the same sort of near -0% slump in sales. In fact some newsagents say it was the price rise to $3 a day that finally caught up with The AFR in the September quarter. It is the most expensive Australian daily paper and it has paid for it.

The Australian at least put a story on Page 2 about its sales falling “marginally”; and another story in the Media section on industry trends. A 4.2% fall in weekday sales for the paper in three months is not a marginal fall by any indication, even compared to the 9.7% slump for The AFR in the same quarter.

It seems national papers became a bit of a luxury for some readers in the September quarter, despite high levels of consumer confidence and improving business confidence and conditions (which made a mockery of Michael Gill’s lame excuse).

And the overall for newspapers wasn’t good, despite what the papers tried to claim. While not as bad as the experiences in the US and UK, gross circulations fell 1.8% in the year to September and 2.2% in the September quarter.

It was the worst audit period for over a year for newspapers, but nowhere near as bad as the terrible falls of 10-20% for many big US papers. Some of the falls though are approaching those in the UK; such as The AFR, The Australian and some of the Sundays.

The biggest slap has been for the long serving duo in charge of The AFR, editor Glen Burge and publisher, Michael Gill. Both are responsible for the horribly underperforming AFR.com. (It’s what happens when you ask people to pay for an inferior product, no one comes).

The Monday to Friday AFR shed 9.7% of its sales in the year to September (to 79,201 Monday to Friday, from 87,702 in September 2008), and 3.2% in the September three months, when the markets were booming!

That was worse than the 4.2% fall in the Monday to Friday sales of The Australian (to 134,100, from 140,000 in September, 2008). The Australian lost 1.3 of its circulation in the September quarter.

The Weekend Australian eased 1.6% in the 12 months to September to 302,115, with the loss accelerating in the September quarter to 1.7%.

The Weekend edition of The AFR lost 5.9% (to 78,433 in September, from 83,365 a year earlier). The paper lost a very nasty 13.5% of its sales in the September quarter, or more than 12,200 copies a day.

The only other state based papers to have falls of anywhere near these, were 5% drop or thereabouts for the Courier Mail in Brisbane (down 4.9% for the Saturday edition. The Sunday Mail in Brisbane shed 5.1% of its sales in the year to September.

Fairfax’s Sun Herald in Sydney lost 6.5% in the 12 moths to September, or more than 30,000 copies every Sunday (to 447,946 copies). The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney lost 1.7% in the 12 months, but 2.7% in the three months to September, or 18,000 copies every Sunday (639,354 copies average).

Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald Monday to Friday and the Saturday paper had good sales periods. The weekday paper lost 0.6% of its sales over the year to 208,210 copies a day (a loss of 0.9% for the three months to September). The Saturday paper added 0.3% of its sales over the year, but lost 3% in the September quarter to 348,300 copies each Saturday.

Fairfax’s Melbourne Age added 0.2% of its sales in the year to September, but shed 2.9% in the September quarter, to average 200,800 copies a day. the Saturday Age lost 2.7% in the year and 2.4% in the quarter to 284,500 copies. The Sunday Age added 0.5% to its circulation in the year and 0.7% in the September quarter (226,900 copies), one of the better performances a weak period overall for Australian newspapers.

The News Ltd-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney, which had a reasonable year, but very nasty quarters with losses of 5% or more in the circulations of the weekday paper (down more than 19,000 copies a day to 369,781 copies) and the Saturday edition (down more than 18,000 copies every Saturday in the three months to 318,944 copies).

The Melbourne Herald-Sun lifted its sales 0.1% in the year to September, but shed 1.5% in the September quarter or 8,000 copies a day to 518,500 copies. The Saturday edition added 0.3% over the year, but shed 1.3% in the quarter, or 9,500 copies to 505,000 copies.

The Sunday edition lost 0.4% for the year and 0.7% in the quarter to 615,500 copies.

Among the newspaper magazines, The Australian’s Wish shed more than 38,000 copies over the year top September to average 103,800 copies, down from 142,000 copies. The AFR‘s Boss magazine shed more than 8,000 over the year and more than 31,000 in the quarter to average 89,331 copies in the three months to September 30, down from 129,952 in the June quarter.

The West Australian in Perth added 0.2% in the year to September, but shed 0.8% in the quarter. The Saturday edition lost 2% over the year and 3.9% in the quarter.

………………………………………………..

Magazine figures were limited to the handful of weeklies and it was good news for the ACP-owned Woman’s Day with a small rise in the quarter and in the year to September.

New Idea slipped again, down 2.9% in the year, but up 1.8% in the quarter.

But the star was Pacific Magazine’s famous, which saw sales up 35% in the year and 4% in the quarter to more than 83,800 a week.

That’s Life lost ground for Pacific, down 4.7% in the year and 2.8% for the quarter. Who Weekly sales rose 1.1% in the quarter and in the 12 months ending September.

Men’s magazines like Zoo, People and Picture (All ACP) all fell again over the quarter and the year.

Fairfax Media’s BRW lost 1.2% over the year and 4.1% over the quarter to end on 40,644 copies a week.

Another success story from Fairfax business publications and the teflon duo, Glen Burge and Michael Gill.