March ABCs: A steady month for newspaper circulation

After recording declining circulations across all titles in February, March was a fairly static month for newspapers. The dailies market grew a marginal 0.1% over the month – although the market was down -8.5% year-on-year.

Among the best performing titles period-on-period (PoP) were the Financial Times (+1.6%), the Daily Star (+1.1%), the Daily Mirror (+0.8%) and the Guardian (+0.7%).

The worst hit daily title was the Daily Telegraph, which saw circulation fall -0.9% PoP to just over 340,000 copies. The Sun, the best-selling UK daily at 1.4m copies, was also down over the period (-0.2%), while the second most popular newspaper, the Daily Mail, remained steady at 1.2m.

The overall Sunday market fared worse in March – down -0.9% PoP and -8.5% year-on-year.

Only two Sunday titles managed to grow their circulations over the period: the Observer (+1.1%) and the Sunday Times (+0.6%). Meanwhile, the Daily Star Sunday was down -2.6%, the Sun on Sunday fell -1.5% and the Sunday Telegraph fell -1.3%.

Elsewhere, the London freebies market dropped a further -2.2% over the month. However, the London Evening Standard recorded strong growth, up 1.7% PoP.