Compacts Buck National Newspaper Trend For Decline

The nation’s newspapers continued their circulation decline throughout May, with the latest figures from ABC showing a downturn across the board in all but the quality market.

Compact titles, the Times and Independent both managed to stave off circulation decrease, with the Times performing particularly well, adding 4.97% year on year in the face of heavy declines by several of its peers. The paper now commands a circulation of 684,695. The Independent, meanwhile, added 0.78% year on year to push circulation to 263,043.

The compact titles were joined in prosperity by the Daily Telegraph, adding 0.82% year on year during May to push total sales to 915,711 and retain its position as the UK’s best-selling quality title. Six-monthly analysis was less kind to the paper, however, with a circulation slip of 0.4% year on year since December 2004.

Elsewhere, the nation’s tabloid titles saw particularly harsh circulation declines, with the People amongst the worst hit, losing 9.28% year on year.

The Daily Mirror was similarly downbeat, shedding 3.58% of its circulation in the same period. The titles now command sales of 932,200 and 1.78 million respectively, while News International’s market-leading Sun retains its top spot, despite a slip of 3.88% year on year.

A similar story could be seen amongst the nation’s Sunday newspapers, with the Daily Star Sunday bearing the brunt of the decline, shedding 19.33% of its circulation year on year to total 420,739. The Sunday Telegraph also suffered, losing 5.9% of its circulation year on year to 666,031.

The Sunday Times and Sunday Express were the only weekend titles to see any increase in sales during May, rising by 0.2% and 2.83% respectively with circulations of 1.36 million and 961,062.

The latest ABC data is now available in the Press database on MediaTel.co.uk. In-depth reports on the various newspaper markets will follow on NewsLine later today.