ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: September 2012

Daily Market

The overall national daily newspaper market was down 8.7% year on year for September – 825,000 less copies circulated. Compared to last month the latest data shows a 1.6% drop or 144,000 copies shed.

Again ‘i’ has recorded a massive 54% increase YoY as its unabridged and more expensive sister title, The Independent dropped a corresponding 54%. However, this coincidence isn’t a total migration of purchasers as Independent Print has scaled back multiple copy circulation (for airlines and in hotels) of The Independent and replaced it with ‘i’.

Other than ‘i’ all the other national newspapers lost sale with only The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and Daily Record not showing double figure percentage declines. The Sun is down 280,000 copies to under 2.5 million – its lowest recorded ABC circulation for as far as our database goes back (25 years).

Period on period gains were seen for the FT as the city went back to work and only ‘i’ and The Guardian recording PoP gains, albeit small at 0.5% and 0.3%.

London Free Press

Metro in London is still the highest distributing free newspaper in the capital. In September it distributed 782,000 copies and inched up 0.3% YoY. The Evening Standard dropped 2,000 copies YoY to just over 700,000 copies. The stand-out performer, again this month, was City A.M. as it increased its distribution further in commuter routes in the South and South West. In May this year, City A.M. doubled the number of stations where it is available from 105 to 212.

Sunday Newspaper Market

The Sunday national newspaper market lost 1.1% in sales for September compared to the corresponding month last year. However, the figures are clouded by the News of the World having closed and not in circulation this time last year. Since then News International has launched a Sunday edition of The Sun. The Sunday edition continues to drop from its initial launch highs and sold just over 2 million copies in September.

The other popular newspapers that gained sale and market share following the demise of the News of the World have given gains back that total into hundreds of thousands of copies and a near on halving in circulation. The People is down 46%, The Daily Star Sunday 42% and the Sunday Mirror 41% (or three quarters of a million copies).

The mid markets haven’t faired much better with the Sunday Express down 27% and the Mail on Sunday down 11%.

Like for like comparison is probably easiest in the quality Sunday market with no distortions to the competitor set. However, the Sunday qualities have had the roughest time with the Independent on Sunday losing a fifth of its sale and the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph losing 8% and 7% respectively YoY.

September sale compared to August this year continues to be grim reading. All the national Sundays are down with the worst performer the Daily Star Sunday (down 7.4%) and the least bad The People at -0.4%.