Belfast Telegraph Newspaper Northern Ireland is a daily newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland by Independent News & Media.

It was first published as the Belfast Evening Telegraph on 1 September 1870 by brothers William and George Baird. Its first edition cost half a penny and ran to four pages covering the Franco-Prussian war and local news.

The evening edition of the newspaper was originally called the “Sixth Late”, and “Sixth Late Tele” was a familiar cry made by vendors in Belfast City Centre in the past.

Its competitors are The News Letter and The Irish News but the English red tops are also a threat, selling at a cheaper price than the ‘Tele’.

The Belfast Telegraph was entirely broadsheet until 19 February 2005, when the Saturday morning edition was introduced and all Saturday editions were converted to compact.The weekday morning Compact Edition, launched on 22 March 2005,struggled to replicate the evening newspaper’s success. Its editorial content has been much more tabloid, with a greater entertainment story count than the evening paper. Much prominence is given to English based sport, and some general features and columns are shared with the Independent and Irish Independent.

The paper now publishes two editions daily, Belfast Telegraph final edition and the North West Telegraph which is distributed in Derry.

By the end of the 20th century The Belfast Telegraph was selling more than 100,000 copies daily.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper still had an average daily circulation of 94,540 between June 2004 and January 2005. But since then sales have fallen steadily year on year, the average sales figure for the first six months of 2009 showing a large drop of 10.5% year on year to 68,024,then to just over 66,000. There was a slight upturn in the first six months of 2010.

But such was the overall decline in circulation that in the ABC figures for January to June 2012, the Irish News surpassed the Belfast Telegraph in terms of full-priced copies sold, with the once unrivalled Telegraph now trailing the Irish News by 1,284 copies per day. They show that the regional daily saw its circulation fall by 9.2 percent year on year to an average of 53,847 for the first six months of the year.[1] However, when its discounted and give-away prices are taken into account, the Belfast Telegraph still has the highest circulation as audited by ABC of the local daily newspapers including the NI edition of the Daily Mirror 52,009, Irish News 42,084 and News Letter 22,198.

The Beflast Telegraph is read by 174,000 people daily according to NITIG 2012, annual readership research subscribed to by media owners and advertising agencies throughout the UK and Ireland. Its readership shows the best balanced readership across all communities in Northern Ireland.