News of the World: Commercial Facts and Figures

It is estimated the NotW generates around £35 million pa in advertising revenue.

Much of the money is delivered in deals across the week that include The Sun.

Retail advertising on Sundays has never been strong (retailers want Thursday/Friday/Saturdays to generate footfall) and the daily papers leverage this demand by securing deals for their sister Sunday titles.

The whole category (Sunday red-tops) has been the worst performing segment of the national press in terms of circulation and advertising. Both NotW and the sector are down 8% year on year Dec-May ABC.

The advertising market for the Sunday red tops has been deteriorating with advertisers deserting the segment. Revenue shortfalls have not been made up but there is more reliance on direct response advertisers selling off the page merchandise.

Although NotW had a healthy solus readership figure for the Sundays, most of the readers could be communicated to in other newspapers across the week; therefore many advertisers were increasing frequency of message rather than coverage of new consumers.

NotW is still profitable (around £16 million) but has been dramatically declining in contribution due to:

1) Circulation decline not being made up by constrained cover price
2) Increasing editorial costs (Fabulous mag) not being rewarded with higher yielding advertisers
3) General decline in perceived advertising effectiveness/usefulness for the segment

A decade ago NOTW would have made nearer to £40 million profit.

Sunday Sales: Share of Top 10 Titles for Avg. Net Circulation
ABC, May 2011