February ABCs: Circulation dips across all titles

After three fairly steady months for newspaper circulation, February’s figures illustrate a more bleak picture of the market. Every title across all markets recorded both month-on-month and year-on-year declines.

Possibly exacerbated by then-early signs of coronavirus and rising anxiety around handling print media, the daily national newspaper market was down -2.1% overall last month. The Guardian was hit the worst on a month-on-month basis, down -4.1% or 5,500 copies. The newbrand shifted 126,900 copies in total.

Retaining its status as the most popular daily national newspaper, The Sun nevertheless also saw a significant drop in circulation – down -3.5% to 1.2m, a loss of more than 44,000 copies.

Meanwhile, The Daily Mail (second in the market) shifted 35,000 fewer copies, a -3% drop to a circulation of 1.1m.

The Financial Times and the Times also saw notable declines, down -1.9% and -2.4%, respectively, while the i alone managed to remain somewhat steady with a -0.6% slide (-1,300 copies).

The Sunday market painted a similar picture, down -1.7% overall.

The Sunday Mirror, Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday saw the most substantial circulation hits, down -2.9% to 356,600, -2.8% to 245,600 and -2.6% to 158,100, respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Observer slid -0.8% to a circulation of 155,000, and the Mail on Sunday dropped -0.5% to 962,100.

Elsewhere, the London freebie market declined -0.8%, with the London Evening Standard down -1.3% (-10,000 copies) and the Metro (London) down -0.3% (-2,700 copies).

Earlier this week, PAMCo released its latest cross-platform audience figures for UK newsbrands which tell a much more positive story as it’s possible to see the true brand reach. Almost all titles recorded monthly readership growth over the most recent period, with particularly strong growth recorded on mobile phone devices.