As we continue to face the daily consequences of the Coronavirus crisis, the publisher of Irish Mirror, Dublin Live, RSVP, Cork Beo and Belfast Live has launched the Great Big Lockdown Survey series across three of its Irish sites and the entire UK network.
The lockdown surveys, powered by doopoll, which run across the group’s entire portfolio of newsbrands in the UK and Ireland, will seek the opinions of its 225m readership (April 2020) on all aspects of life during these unprecedented times.
The first reader survey of the series launched on May 1 and over the course of five days, more than 400,000 readers across all of Reach’s newsbrands responded, driving page views, print sales and user registrations.
Out of Reach’s Irish portfolio, the survey ran on three of its five sites – Irish Mirror, Dublin Live and Belfast Live – getting 3,438 total responses capturing the impact the crisis has had on the daily lives of their readers all over the country.
More than half of Irish Mirror readers expect social distancing restrictions to be in place for more than five months. In the North, Belfast Live readers seem more hopeful with only 39% saying five months or more.
Also, over half of readers of Irish Mirror and Dublin Live, 58% and 53% respectively, think that the Government introduced social distancing measures at the right time.
In terms of the government’s handling of the outbreak, Irish Mirror readers rated it at 7.6 on average out of 10; while Dublin Live readers rated it lesser than that at 6.9.
Looking at individual performances of government representatives addressing the public during the pandemic, both sets of audiences rated Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan as the standout figure for the population, receiving the strongest average score amongst those facing the public, followed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Minister for Health Simon Harris and HSE Chief Paul Reid.
Other questions surveyed included impact on household income, tax rates, respondents with children under 18 living at home during lockdown and even whether readers would consider going to the pub during the stay at home period if one on their street secretly re-opened.
The answer from both Irish Mirror and Dublin Live readers was “unlikely to.”
Publishing the results on irishmirror.ie, Online Editor, Colin Brennan said: “It’s very clear that at times like these, our audiences really want to share their experiences and they put their trust in us as a news publisher to be a voice for them and address the impact the crisis has had on their daily lives.
“To get more than 3,400 responses across our three sites, to a survey with over 40 questions, proves the strength of the relationship between our brands and our readers.”
LesleyAnn Diffin, Business Comms Manager for Reach added: “We have access to some of Ireland’s most engaged, loyal readers, and we know how to engage them effectively for our advertising partners at a time when brands need to remain visible and remain relevant.”
