January newspaper ABCs: another steady(ish) month

For the third consecutive month, the daily national newspaper market has remained fairly steady – and in January was overall up 0.9% month-on-month.

However, aside from the Metro (total UK footprint), every title was down year-on-year – culminating in a collective decline of -7.6%.

Every title in the quality market – which no longer includes the Daily Telegraph since it pulled out of ABC reporting – was down both year-on-year and month-on-month.

Although most of the month-on-month declines were very slight, the Financial Times – with new editor Roula Khalaf picking up the reins on Jan 18 – was down a more significant -2.7%, a drop of almost 4,500 copies.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail had a good start to the year and boosted its circulation by 2.5%, shifting an extra 28,000 copies, while the Sun was up 2.9%, an extra 35,000 copies.

Meanwhile, the Sunday market was up 0.2% overall between December and January. The best performing title was the Sun on Sunday, up 1.5% (15,800 copies), while the Observer was the worst performing, down -4.4% (7,200 copies).

Year-on-year, the entire Sunday market was down -10.6%.

The London free press was overall steady – however, over the year the market experienced a decline of -4%, the equivalent to almost 73,000 fewer papers handed out.

Note: You can read the Daily Telegraph’s new ‘omni-channel subscriber’ figures, assured by PwC, here.