Newspaper print circulation declined further in the September quarter as Australians looked to get their news through digital products, new figures show.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) said in its latest report that Monday to Saturday sales of national, metropolitan and regional newspapers backpedalled 5.9 per cent in the three months to September 30, compared with the prior corresponding period.
The September quarter result was a little worse than the 5.7 per cent fall in the three months to June 30.
Despite the ongoing slump in sales of the physical masthead, The Newspaper Works chief executive Tony Hale said printed newspapers had a solid future.
'The fact that around 18 million copies are still sold every week is powerful evidence of that,' Mr Hale said in a statement.
'At the same time, publishers are taking a range of different approaches to digital products with some making a more accelerated conversion to digital subscription models.'
The Newspaper Works, a non-profit body set up to promote the industry, said it was the first time Australia's two major publishers - News Ltd and Fairfax Media - had participated in the reporting of both print and digital sales.
Mr Hale said there were combined digital sales of almost 120,000 for The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne in the September quarter.
He said this showed Australians were willing to pay for quality journalism in both print and digital formats.
'The multi-platform publishing strategies being pursued by the major newspaper publishers have produced a very promising picture of newspaper circulations,' Mr Hale said.
The ABC figures showed Fairfax Media's Sydney Morning Herald had 56,559 average net paid digital sales in the September quarter, compared with 31,502 at Melbourne's The Age and 31,241 at News Ltd's The Australian, based on Monday to Friday sales.
News Ltd chief executive Kim Williams said The Australian had grown its digital subscriptions by 16 per cent over the past six months, which demonstrated there was a real and growing market for quality journalism available digitally.
'The growth in digital subscriptions and strong audiences for our digital sites is encouraging as we continue to transform our business in serving consumers and advertisers across a rich range of technologies - print, online, mobile, tablet and broadcast,' Mr Williams said in a statement.
Sydney's Sunday Telegraph recorded the highest circulation in the quarter, with 600,236 copies sold each week, down one per cent from the prior corresponding period.
Elsewhere, print circulation for the Monday to Friday edition of The Age dived 16.9 per cent to 158,485, while weekday edition sales of The Sydney Morning Herald fell 15.1 per cent to 161,169.
One bright spot amid a sea of declining print sales was in Perth, where the weekday edition of The West Australian rose 0.7 per cent to 190,251.
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