NRS National Newspaper Round-Up: Jan 2010 – Dec 2010

The latest NRS figures for January to December 2010 reflects a poor 12 months for the national newspaper market – with all titles, both Daily and Sunday, seeing their readerships decline compared to 2009’s numbers.

Some titles in the Daily market posted fairly hefty year on year losses – The Daily Mirror lost 338,000 readers, while the Daily Telegraph was down 225,000 readers.

The picture for the Sunday market was much the same. The Mail on Sunday posted the biggest actual loss of 491,000 readers and The Sunday Times slipped below the 3 million readers mark for the first time.

Daily Titles

• The quality titles suffered the biggest percentage falls – with the Independent down by more than 20% YoY
• The Financial Times also saw a big drop in readers, down more than 16% YoY
• The Guardian fared better than most in the quality sector – dipping just 3.8% YoY (44,000 readers)
• Both mid-market titles saw a drop in readership – the Daily Express down 9.5% and the Daily Mail down 3.9% YoY
• However, the Daily Mirror posted the biggest actual loss in the daily market, losing 338,000 readers
• The Sun and the Daily Star were the better performers, dipping just 0.5% and 0.4% YoY respectively
• The Sun easily remains the most read title in the daily sector with a total readership of 7.7 million

Sunday titles

• All of the quality titles suffered substantial YoY falls, with the Sunday Times losing as many as 286,000 readers – taking it below the 3 million-readers mark for the first time
• The Observer recorded the biggest YoY percentage decline, down 20.2%
• In the mid-market, the Mail On Sunday was down 9.1% YoY, while the Sunday Express posted a 10% fall
• As with the Daily Market, the Sunday tabloids fared better – posting smaller YoY percentage drops
• The News of the World saw the smallest percentage fall in the Sunday market, down just 1.5% YoY
• Overall, the NOTW remains the most popular title with a total readership of more than 7.5 million