NRS National Newspaper Round-Up – January 2003
The latest NRS figures for the six months to January 2003 reveal a relatively static period for overall national newspaper readership, which rose by 1.3% year on year to 66.8 million.
Increasing coverage of the impending war with Iraq appears to have had a positive effect on the readership of broadsheet newspapers, with the majority of quality titles experiencing year on year increases. The most notable of these was seen at The Independent and The Independent On Sunday, which saw readership improve by 42.3% and 16.3% respectively.
News International’s Times and The Sunday Times also got off to a good start in 2003. Both titles saw readership increase by 17.5% year on year to a respective 1,973,000 and 3,539,000. The Observer recorded a notable 7.1% improvement in readership to 1,264,000 and the Guardian rose by 1.9% during January.
However, the soon to be redesigned Daily Telegraph (see Daily Telegraph Launches Nation-Wide Ad Campaign) and its Sunday sibling fared less well, with readership slipping by 0.7% and 2.2% respectively.
Elsewhere, the Daily Mirror‘s tough anti-war stance appeared to have little positive effect in terms of readership, which slipped by 6.2% year on year during January. The Sunday Mirror also had a somewhat lacklustre month, with readership declining by 2.0% to 5,228,000.
Heavier losses were seen at the News of The World, which saw its readership shrink by 6.4% during January to below the 10 million mark. However, there was comfort elsewhere for Rupert Murdoch, with the Sun, under its new editor Rebekah Wade (see New Sun Editor Says Job Is Best In Newspapers), recording a 3.2% year on year increase to 9,560,000.
Richard Desmond’s Daily Star continued to out-perform its tabloid rivals in terms of percentage increase in readership. The title, which recently spawned a Sunday spin-off (see NewsLine Feature: Sunday Star Hopes To Shine), improved by 19.3% year on year to 1,870,000.
Competition between the daily mid-market titles remained intense during January, with both the Daily Express and the Daily Mail seeing their readership increase by 10.1% and 5.6% respectively.
| National Newspaper NRS Figures – January 2003 | ||||
| Title | Aug 01 – Jan 02 | Aug 02 – Jan 03 | Actual Change | % Change |
| Daily Express | 2,073,000 | 2,283,000 | 210,000 | 10.1 |
| Daily Mail | 5,686,000 | 6,004,000 | 318,000 | 5.6 |
| Daily Mirror | 5,638,000 | 5,291,000 | -347,000 | -6.2 |
| Daily Record | 1,613,000 | 1,503,000 | -110,000 | -6.8 |
| Daily Star | 1,568,000 | 1,870,000 | 302,000 | 19.3 |
| Daily Telegraph | 2,362,000 | 2,346,000 | -16,000 | -0.7 |
| Financial Times | 621,000 | 524,000 | -97,000 | -15.6 |
| Guardian | 1,241,000 | 1,264,000 | 23,000 | 1.9 |
| Independent | 423,000 | 602,000 | 179,000 | 42.3 |
| Independent On Sunday | 566,000 | 658,000 | 92,000 | 16.3 |
| Mail On Sunday | 6,005,000 | 6,184,000 | 179,000 | 3.0 |
| News Of The World | 10,361,000 | 9,703,000 | -658,000 | -6.4 |
| Observer | 1,180,000 | 1,264,000 | 84,000 | 7.1 |
| People | 3,005,000 | 2,740,000 | -265,000 | -8.8 |
| Sun | 9,261,000 | 9,560,000 | 299,000 | 3.2 |
| Sunday Express | 2,237,000 | 2,229,000 | -8,000 | -0.4 |
| Sunday Mirror | 5,334,000 | 5,228,000 | -106,000 | -2.0 |
| Sunday Telegraph | 2,098,000 | 2,052,000 | -46,000 | -2.2 |
| Sunday Times | 3,013,000 | 3,539,000 | 526,000 | 17.5 |
| Times | 1,679,000 | 1,973,000 | 294,000 | 17.5 |
| Total | 65,964,000 | 66,817,000 | 853,000 | 1.3 |
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