National newspaper ABCs: July 2015

The daily market

While all titles continued to see significant yearly declines in circulation, July was another quiet month for daily national newspapers, with little change compared to June.

In the quality market, only the Times (1.4%) and i (0.6%) recorded an increase in circulation, while a -3.3% hit cost the Financial Times – which was sold to Japanese media firm Nikkei for £844m last month – 7,000 sales.

In the mid market the Daily Mail’s circulation remained stable, while also only seeing sales decrease by -2.8% over the year – one of the lowest year-on-year declines alongside the Times (-0.9% year on year) and the FT (-2.9% year on year).

Over in the popular market, while down -9.7% over the year, a 2.1% increase in circulation in July boosted Sun sales by a little under 38,000 – no doubt helped by a series of exclusives.

Not such exciting news for the Record and Star, however, which were down -2.1% and -1.1%, respectively.

Overall the daily market was up 0.4% period on period and down -7.2% year on year.

London Free Press

As Londoners escaped the Big Smoke for their summer getaways, the capital’s free newspapers correspondingly saw their circulations decline.

City A.M. was hardest hit, recording a decline of -6.1%, a drop of more than 6,600, whilst the London Evening Standard dropped -1% and shifted almost 9,000 fewer copies.

The Metro, however, was almost steady with June, dropping only -0.1%.

Overall the market was down -0.9% in July.

The Sunday market

The summertime lull continued for the Sunday newspaper market with most titles recording circulation declines in July.

However, the Sun on Sunday put in a strong performance – increasing its circulation by almost 79,000 (+5.4%) to record total sales of more than 1.5m in July. Over the last year, however, the title was down -7.7% (a drop of -129,000).

The only other gains in July were made by the Daily Star Sunday (up 1.8%), the Sunday Express (up 1%) and the Independent on Sunday (up just 0.6%).

All other titles recorded minor losses, with the Sunday People faring the worst – recording a drop of -1.5% and shifting almost 5,000 less copies compared with June.

Overall, the Sunday market was up 1% in July, and down -8.7% year on year – a drop of almost 622,000 newspapers.