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New figures out today have confirmed the award-winning Belfast Telegraph as the country's No.1 news service.
The current UK Newspaper Of The Year has been bolstered by independently audited readership figures which reveal a range of competition-beating statistics.
The organisation Kantar Media, which measures readership through its TGI survey, yesterday released figures which show the Belfast Telegraph is reaching hundreds of thousands of people across the week. In total 435,000* people have read the Belfast Telegraph in the last seven days. A daily readership of 174,000 places us well above our home-grown rivals, the Irish News and the News Letter.
And the good news for the Belfast Telegraph does not end there. The newspaper had made great strides in attracting female readers who now account for almost 53% of our readership. Exactly half of our readers are in the core income-earning age bracket of 35 — 64, while one in three is positioned in the decision-making social class, AB.
And further positive news puts us way out ahead of our rivals in our cross-community appeal. Figures on the faith of those surveyed make the Belfast Telegraph the newspaper that, by a considerable margin, comes closest to reflecting the religious breakdown of the Northern Irish population.
Figures also show that 74% of readers live in urban areas of the country, a figure which is reflective of the actual breakdown of population statistics.
Editor Mike Gilson said: “I am delighted by today's figures. Readers are flocking to the Belfast Telegraph in huge numbers knowing that we provide the best news and advertising service in the country. That 435,000 people come to us at least once a week is a tremendous tribute to the team here and our never-ending quest to improve our newspaper and digital services.
“I would like to thank everyone for their loyalty. Our campaigns and calls for improvements to quality of life in a modern, forward-looking Northern Ireland are clearly finding support out in the country.
“This newspaper only pursues a news agenda that asks what is good for all of the people of Northern Ireland, and it is heartening that this is reflected in today's figures, placing us as far and away the most representative newspaper for the entire country.
“Our work to get better and better goes on. These figures prove the doom-mongers about the newspaper industry to be about as right as those who said the London Olympics would be a disaster.”
*Kantar Media - Belfast Telegraph Total Audience Study 2012
NI TGI 2012
