National Press In Scotland – Market Overview

For all the efforts made by the English-based nationals, the Scottish newspaper market is still clearly dominated by the home-based titles, whose circulation’s have slipped, but never plummeted over the last six audit periods.

The Record and Sunday Mail, still market leaders by a distance (the Record has over 40% of the daily market) will be hoping to consolidate further after their move to the new Cardonald printing site is completed in January 1995. Advertisement Director Gordon Terris anticipates growth through new inserting and colour opportunities, and an expansion to five regional advertising editions, with costs that should attract local advertisers to the papers for the first time.

The Record’s lead has been reduced over the past twelve months by The Sun’s 20p cover price promotion, which has seen News International increase Scottish sales by 80,000. Nearly a third of these have been at the expense of the Daily Record, but the Daily Express and Daily Star have also suffered. An encouraging note for the market as a whole is that The Sun’s efforts have actually increased the Scottish daily market – by approximately 40,000 copies at the latest count, to over 1.8 million.

Express Newspapers is the latest publisher to attempt greater inroads into this market with the launch of Focus, a Scottish section appearing fortnightly in the Daily Express and monthly in the Sunday Express. Apart from broadening its advertising base and increasing sales, Express’ aim is to offer publishing sponsorship opportunities to Scottish companies for the first time. Print run is 110,000 for the Sunday edition and 160,000 for the daily. At the quality end of the market, Scotland on Sunday is growing its share steadily, mostly at the expense of the Sunday Times. The last audited figure was 86,000, but local estimates put sales at over 90,000 now. This compares with 73,000 in 1991, but there are still two nagging questions. How many of these extra sales are actually being achieved in Scotland, and can the title fulfil its real potential ? Agencies feel sales of 130,000 are not unrealistic.

Scotland on Sunday is the only national Scottish title to show steady circulation increases over the last three years, although The Herald and Scotsman would point to readership gains, despite small sales losses.

The Times price promotion appears to have resulted in sales gains of 3,000-4,000 – approximate sales were put at 12,000 prior to the promotion.