National Newspaper ABC Round-Up – November 1998
Quality Market
Total broadsheet circulation fell year on year by 3.5%, resulting in a total circulation of 5,633,201 for the June-November period. The Financial Times was the only title to show a substantial rise in circulation, showing a growth of 11.5% to 363,525. The Sunday Times has the highest circulation of all the quality newspapers, currently at 1,350,480, and the title to suffer the biggest actual loss in circulation was The Sunday Telegraph, which lost 51,522 sales, 5.8% of its total.
Quality Market Jun-Nov’98 ABC Year On Year Comparisons
The Independent On Sunday was the title to lose the highest proportion of its circulation, which fell a substantial 11.5% in November.
Mid-Market
Similar to figures from last month, in the mid-market the Express titles showed a fall in circulation, whereas The Daily Mail and its Sunday sister both showed rises in circulation – 5.3% and 4.2% respectively. The Express On Sunday lost both the greatest proportion of and actual sales of all the mid-market papers, suffering a loss of 10.2%, an actual fall of 117,560 sales.
Mid-Market Jun-Nov ’98 ABC Year On Year Comparisons
Popular Market
Titles in the popular market generally experienced losses in their circulation, with The Mirror being the only title to see any growth, and even that was only a 0.6% change.
Popular Market Jun-Nov ’98 ABC Year On Year Comparisons
The Daily Star suffered the greatest percentage loss in sales of 12.6%, an actual loss of over 91,000 sales, and The Sunday Mirror lost a similar proportion, although a much larger actual number of sales – 285,644 to be exact.
National Newspapers
On the whole therefore, this was another fairly bad month for most national newspaper titles, with the vast majority experiencing falls in circulation. However, both The Sunday Business and The Independent On Sunday saw their circulations rise since October, with increases of 1.1% and 0.6% respectively.
Despite its substantial year on year gain, The Financial Times sustained the greatest month on month loss of circulation, seeing an actual fall of over 15,000 – a percentage loss of 3.9.
National Newspaper Nov’98 ABC Month On Month Comparisons
The News Of The World saw the biggest actual loss in circulation, a rather substantial 120,676, although this is partly due to the fact that it is still the title with the highest circulation, an actual figure of 4,196,149. Its closest contender is The Sun, which currently has a circulation of 3,658,704.
As the methodology for national newspaper supplements changed in July 1998, ABC advises caution when comparing figures for national newspapers and their supplements with earlier periods which were audited under the old rules.
Industry News
The Observer linked up with UCI Cinemas this month to give readers free cinema tickets. Vouchers in The Observer’s ‘Life’ magazine gave readers to 2 cinema tickets for the price of one. The vouchers are valid to see any film at a UCI cinema any time until the end of the year.
The Guardian and Nike launched a print and online collaboration in November. A 24 page A5 Run London Guide was given away with The Guardian in the London area, and the website http://www.runlondon.co.uk will be run for 3 months. The website features 100 runs in the London area, with detailed maps.