August newspaper ABCs

Of the twelve newspapers in the UK’s daily market, only two were able to report any growth in sales figures between July and August 2019.

Last month’s figures, issued today by ABC, show a print market in terminal decline: overall, the market was down -0.7% period-on-period, and -9.6% year-on-year.

However, reading the cross-platform readership figures from PAMCo, also issued this week, tells a vastly different story – where newsbrands have spread their audiences across multiple platforms and devices and are all experiencing growth.

For that reason, Mediatel News urges readers to read both measures – ‘print sales’ and ‘true brand reach’, respectively – to understand the real picture.

In the latest ABC report, however, only the Sun and Daily Record reported a rise in print circulations, up +0.2% and +1.3%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the hardest hit title was the Daily Telegraph, which dropped more than 12,600 copies (a decline of -3.8% PoP).

It was a similar, but slightly better picture in the Sunday market with four titles reporting period-on-period growth.

The Sunday Times (+0.8%), Mail on Sunday (0.1%), Sun on Sunday (+1.3%) and Sunday Mail (+0.5%) were all up, while the remainder of the market only experienced slight declines between between July and August.

Overall, the Sunday market remained steady period-on-period, but was down -11.7% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, a victim of the summer holiday lull, the London free press was down almost 3% period-on-period.