Friday, July 14, 2006

Newspaper prices

I have a question. Why are Irish newspapers so expensive? Why, for example, in Dublin shops the Irish Independent is eur1.60 and The (London) Independent is eur1.00? Why is the Irish Times eur1.60 and The (London) Times 90c? I could also ask why are the Irish Times and the Irish Independent charging exactly the same price? Are the prices agreed between them or is it just a happy and amazing coincidence? Surely they are in competition?

While I'm on the subject of printed media prices, why if newspapers can set the price they are sold at then magazines and books can not do the same? Prices on books and magazines vary widely from shop to shop in Ireland. The prices printed on the back and used in many other countries do not apply here and the shops can pretty much charge what they like.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dec, I'll have a go at answering the first part of your question.

I think it's two things...the first is the inflated salaries of those at the top of the papers (certainly true of the Irish Times), and the second is the number of potential readers of Irish papers compared to English ones. The population of London is about 7.5 million...that's more than double the population of the whole of the Republic. I think it's amazing that the Irish Papers manage to even come close.