ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: September 2010

Daily Newspaper Market

September was another poor month for the daily newspaper market, with circulations continuing to decline compared with this time last year.

The post-summer month saw the overall market fall 5.3% year on year and 1.0% month on month.

Quality Daily Titles

• Titles in the quality sector gained the highest percentage increases in September, compared to their mid-market and popular rivals.
• The Financial Times and the Independent fared better than their quality counterparts YoY, with both titles showing PoP increases, along with the Guardian up 2.2%.
• The Daily Telegraph and The Times both posted significant percentage decreases, as they did in August.

Mid-Market Daily Titles

• Both mid-market titles posted year on year and month on month declines.
• However, the Daily Mail recorded only a 0.7% year on year drop retaining a healthy circulation of more than 2.1 million copies.

Popular Daily Titles

• The Daily Star provided the only good news in the popular sector, after boasting a small 0.1% year on year and a 0.3 PoP increase – the only title to show any increase in the daily popular newspaper market.
• The Daily Mirror suffered the biggest year on year percentage loss, although its total circulation remains above the 1.2 million mark.
• Despite posting both year on year and period on period declines, The Sun continues to hold the top spot.

Sunday Newspaper Market

It was much the same in the Sunday newspaper market, which suffered an overall 6.7% year on year decline.

There were YoY losses across the board for the Sunday titles, particularly for the Sunday Telegraph and Observer.

Quality Sunday Titles

• The Independent on Sunday, and the Sunday Times fared better than their quality counterparts, although both titles posted year on year losses.
• The Observer recorded the highest year on year percentage decline in the group, closely followed by the Sunday Telegraph.
• The Sunday Times remains the leading Sunday broadsheet with a total circulation of over one million copies.

Mid-Market Sunday Titles

• Both titles in the mid-market sector posted year on year declines, although the Mail on Sunday did show a small PoP increase.
• The Mail on Sunday still leads the sector, despite struggling to get its total over the two million copies-mark again.

Popular Sunday Titles

• All but the News of the World in the Sunday tabloids sector saw reduced PoP figures compared with just two months ago, when all recorded decent month on month increases.
• The News of the World continues to lead the overall Sunday market with an impressive circulation of more than 2.9 million copies, despite a 5.8% year on year decline.