January ABCs: tabloid Guardian makes small gains

Daily market

The Daily Telegraph, which now only reports pure sales – removing any free giveaways from its reporting – is seeing the impact on its ABC figures. The title was down -18% year-on-year (-87,000 copies), and down -2% over the last month.

However, the title currently records sales of 385,300, placing it second in the quality market.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times was up 0.3% YoY and down -1% period-on-period to a circulation of almost 190,000, while the Guardian – now in tabloid format – was down -2.6 over the last year, but up 0.7% in January.

The Times, with a circulation of 440,500 was down -1.3% in January, but still leads the quality market.

Elsewhere in the daily market, the Daily Mail was down -3.7% in January – but still performs well with a circulation of more than 1.3m – while the Sun, still the bestselling daily with a circulation of more than 1.5m, was also the best performing title in January – up 4.4%, or 65,000 copies.

Overall, the daily market remained static between December and January, but was down -8.1% year-on-year.

Sunday market

Both the Observer and the Sunday Times recorded small gains between December and January, up 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.

The Observer – which like the Guardian is now in tabloid format – perhaps attracted some curious new readers in January and now has a circulation of 177,000. The Sunday Times, however, leads the quality market with almost 740,000.

The Sunday Telegraph, which only reports pure sales and does not count free giveaways, was down -1.5% to 299,000.

In the mid-market, the Mail on Sunday was also down -2.7%, and the Daily Star was down -1.3%.

Better news in the popular market, with the Sunday People up 1.4% (but down -19% YoY), and the Sunday Mirror up 2.8% – shifting an extra 14,000 copies.

London Free Press

The capital’s free press recorded circulation increases in January, with a total of 1.87m, up 1.1% from December.

City A.M. was up 0.2%; The Evening Standard was up 2.4%; and the Metro remained steady with no change at all.