March ABCs: Daily market sees small uplift in circulation

Daily market

The Daily Telegraph, which now only reports pure sales – removing any free giveaways from its reporting – had witnessed an impact on its ABC circulation figures as a result. However, March saw the title record a 2% boost over the previous month.

Despite a -17% year-on-year drop, in part attributable to the change in the reporting, the title added an extra 7,500 copies last month, taking its total circulation to 382,200.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times was up a healthy 3.8% period-on-period to a circulation of almost 186,000, while the Guardian – now in tabloid format – was down -0.9% to just a circulation of just 148,000.

Meanwhile, The Times, with a circulation of 435,000, was also up in March. A 1.1% boost saw it add an 5,000 copies over the previous month.

Elsewhere in the daily market, the Daily Mail was up 1.3% shifting an extra 16,500 copies, while The Daily Star was up 0.9% (+3,300 copies), and the Sun was up 1.2% (+16,800).

Overall, the daily market was up 0.7% between February and March, but was down -7.6% year-on-year.

Sunday market

March was a bad month of Sundays. Not one title was able to record any growth in circulation figures.

The Observer was down -1.5% to 176,000, while the Sunday Telegraph was down -1.4% to 293,300. The Sunday Times, still the quality market leader with a solid circulation of 739,400, was down -0.4%.

Elsewhere, the Mail on Sunday was down -1.8% to a little over a million copies, and the Sun on Sunday was down -1.6% to more than 1.2 million.

Overall, the Sunday market was down -1.7% between February and March, and -12.4% year on year.

London Free Press

The capital’s free press also recorded circulation declines in March, with a total of 1.85m papers handed out, a drop of -0.7% on February.

City A.M. was down -0.1%; The Evening Standard was down -1.4%; and the Metro remained steady with no change at all.