December ABCs: Telegraph circulation drops -14%

Daily market

The Daily Telegraph’s circulation took a bit of a hammering in December, with a -14.2% period-on-period decline meaning it now shifts less copies than The Times (393,300 and 446,200, respectively).

However, it’s worth noting The Telegraph has withdrawn all free giveaways from ABC numbers as nothing is sold. Actual sales is measured by newstrade numbers, which continue to register The Telegraph ahead by 40,000.

The Guardian, reporting figures for the last time before moving to a tabloid format in January, fared much better in comparison with a 3.3% PoP increase, while the Financial Times and The Times were up 2.4% and 1.3%, respectively, and the i down -0.9%.

Mid-market titles remained fairly stable in the run-up to Christmas, with the no change to the Daily Express and the Daily Mail up 0.8%.

The Daily Record was the only newspaper in the popular market to see an increase in sales, up 0.5% PoP, while the Daily Star was down -2.5%, the Daily Mirror down -1% and the Sun down -0.8%.

Metro managed to increase its UK footprint by a small 0.2%.

Overall the market was down by just -0.9% PoP and -7% year-on-year.

Sunday market

It was similar picture in the Sunday market which recorded widespread declines, led by the Sunday Telegraph with a -10.8% PoP drop in circulation – amounting to 36,700 fewer copies than November.

The Mail on Sunday was also down -3.4% (-39,700 copies), and the Sunday People was down -3.8% (-7,600).

The only gains in the Sunday market were recorded by the Sunday Express and the Sunday Post – up 0.5% and 0.1%, respectively.

Overall, the Sunday Market was down -3% between November and December, and down -11.8% year on year.

Who knows, perhaps the release of Spielberg’s new film The Post this week can persuade people to reconsider print. We certainly hope so.

London free press

Unsurprisingly, given half of London flees the city over Christmas, the capital’s free press recorded circulation declines in December – but, impressively, they were only slight.

City A.M. was down -0.5%; The Evening Standard was down-3.4%; and the Metro remained steady with no change at all.

Note: We updated this article at 10am on Friday 19 January to make a clearer distinction between ‘sales’ and ‘circulation’ – the Telegraph reports pure sales, whereas many other newspapers include sales and free bulk giveaways.