ABC National newspapers – July 2014

Daily titles

The latest ABC results for July chart the continuing downward trend for daily national newspapers, with the highest monthly increase in circulation belonging to the Times at 1.3%.

The Sun saw a period on period (PoP) increase of 1.2% – an extra 23,700 copies – followed by the Daily Express (up 0.2% PoP) and the Daily Mail (up 0.1% PoP).

The Financial Times and Guardian were hardest hit in July, down -3.3% PoP and -2.2% PoP, respectively. In terms of decrease in copies, the FT lost 7,200, while the Guardian lost a little over 4,100.

As is expected, the results were slightly more hard hitting when looking at the yearly figures, with the Daily Record, Daily Star, FT and Independent down -16%, -14.4%, -12.8% and -12.7%, respectively.

However, a -9.8% year on year decline meant that the Sun lost a huge 224,000 copies compared with July 2013 – more than double the next hardest hit, the Daily Mail, which was down -6% YoY to lose 107,000.

Overall the daily titles were up a marginal 0.2% PoP but down -8.6% YoY.

London Free Press

In the London Free Press, City A.M. suffered a -7.6% PoP decline (8,974), while seeing an even bigger loss over the year of 19,860 copes (-15.4%).

Metro London was the only title to record a monthly increase in circulation, up 0.1%, while the London Evening Standard was down -0.4% PoP, and – as expected – up significantly year on year since expanding its print run.

Sunday Titles

There were mixed fortunes in the Sunday newspaper market with only five of the 12 titles recording any growth over the month.

In the quality market the Independent on Sunday was the only title to record any advance, up 2% to reach a total of 102,074 copies. However, year on year, the paper witnessed a more severe -10.7% decline.

The Observer fared the worst in the quality market, down -2.7% (-5,628 copies) to reach 201,377. Over the last year the Guardian’s sister title has dropped -8.6%, almost 19,000 copies.

The Sunday Times was down -2%, a drop of just under 16,000, whilst the Sunday Telegraph was down -1.2%, losing 4,800 copies over the month.

In the mid-market only the Sunday Express saw any growth in July, up just 1.5% (an additional 6,400 copies). Both the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Post were down, -0.5% and -1.3%, respectively.

All titles in the mid-market were down over the year, although the Mail on Sunday still shifts more than 1.5 million papers every weekend.

Meanwhile, in the popular market, both the Sunday People and the Sun on Sunday recorded period-on-period growth, up 2.8% and 2.4%, respectively.

With almost 1.7 million copies sold, the Sun on Sunday remains the highest selling of all the Sunday titles.

The worst performing title, year on year, was the Sunday Mail, down almost 18% – a drop of over 50,000.