ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: August 2011

The daily national newspaper market saw circulation figures drop off in August after a positive July. Overall the market is down -0.2% PoP and -5.6% YoY. Five titles in the daily market managed to post small PoP rises.

July saw some healthy gains, particularly in the Sunday market, following the closure of News of the World. This continued in August, with all of the Sunday tabloids and the Sunday Express enjoying increases.

Overall, the Sunday market is up 24.5% on August 2010 and 1.4% on July.

Daily Newspaper Market

Quality Daily Titles

• i enjoyed another positive month, with sales up 4.0% on July. Its total circulation continues to sit above its sister title, The Independent
• News International’s The Times was the only other Quality title to post an increase, up 2.0% on last month (although the title is down -9.0% on last year)
• The Daily Telegraph remains the most popular broadsheet with a total of 632,000, despite recording a -0.3% PoP and -6.1% YoY decline
• The Guardian saw the biggest actual loss during the month – down 7,488 copies (-3.0%)
• The Financial Times continues to see sales fall, down -11.9% YoY (a real term loss of almost 45,000 copies)

Mid-Market Daily Titles

• Both Mid-Market titles enjoyed small increases during the month
• The Daily Express‘ total sits at 630,000 after a 0.6% PoP rise (although it is down -6.2% YoY)
• The Daily Mail retains a healthy circulation of more than two million copies after a 0.7% PoP rise (down -4.9% YoY)

Popular Daily Titles

• The daily tabloid market recorded some of the worst results, with just one title posting a small PoP increase
• The Daily Record was up 0.8% during the month but posted a -7.1% YoY drop in sales
• The Sun remains the most-read daily title but is falling further below the three million copies-mark following a -7.1% YoY decline. Its total circulation is down to below 2.8m
• The Daily Star posted the biggest percentage drop during August – down -18.4% YoY to 703,000 copies
• The Daily Mirror saw sales fall -4.7% YoY and -0.9% PoP to 1.17m copies

Sunday Newspaper Market

The summer month saw circulation figures in the tabloid market rocket once again. All three Popular titles enjoyed significant YoY increases.

The closure of the News of the World following the phone-hacking scandal also had an impact on the Mid-Market titles, which both posted YoY rises.

Quality Sunday Titles

• The Sunday Times was the only title in the Sunday Quality market to see an increase on July’s figures – up 1.8%. However, the Independent on Sunday enjoyed a 5.0% rise on last year’s figures, taking its total to 165,000
• Despite seeing the biggest actual loss over the year (55,000 copies), The Sunday Times has jumped over the one million-copy mark again and holds the title as the most-read Sunday Quality

Mid-Market Sunday Titles

• The Sunday Express enjoyed a 17.9% YoY and 4.5% PoP increase in sales
• The Mail on Sunday also recorded a YoY rise, up 6.8%, but is down -7.0% on July. Despite this, it is now the highest-selling Sunday newspaper with a total of almost 2.1 million copies

Popular Sunday Titles

• All three popular titles posted YoY and PoP percentage increases
• The Sunday Mirror saw the biggest actual gain – up by 760,000 copies on last year and 114,000 copies on July (66.7% and 6.4% respectively)
• The People enjoyed a 66.0% YoY and 10.6% PoP increase; while the Daily Star Sunday recorded a 95.4% YoY and 5.9% PoP rise
• The Sunday Mirror is the most popular Sunday tabloid with a total circulation of 1.9 million copies