The latest round of national newspaper circulation figures (August 1998 to January 1999), released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) at the end of last week, show that whilst year on year sales are predominately down, January was a much better month for the nationals than December.
Monthly comparisons show that every national newspaper, bar the Financial Times, increased its sales between December and January (the FT, however, is performing very strongly year on year). Most notable is the increase in circulation for Sport First – up by 37% from 61,523 to 84,378 month on month. The other relative newcomer to the ABCs, the Sunday Business, is also making some headway on the news stands – up by 11.9% between December and January.
The other success stories, month on month, are the Sunday newspapers. Six of the Sunday nationals saw their circulation rise by over 5%.
Quality Market The Financial Times continues to storm forward, driving circulation up by 13.1% year on year for this period. The Daily Telegraph continues to quietly lead the national broadsheet market with a circulation of just over one million papers. Year on year, though, the Telegraph has lost over 46,000 copies. The Sunday Telegraph also suffered a bit of a kick in the teeth, losing 60,350 copies year on year and registering virtually no change month on month despite growth across most of the other Sunday nationals between December and January.
The two Independent titles continue their decline: the daily dropped 13.4% in circulation; the IoS fell by 11.6%. This week the Independent launched two new supplements. Mondays see the introduction of a new 12-page sports pull-out and Wednesdays have a new section called Business Review (see Independent Gains Two New Supplements).
Mid Market The Mail and Express papers continue to battle it out in the mid market. Once again these ABCs show that the Mail titles are gaining circulation whilst the Express papers continue shed sales. The Express On Sunday, which is to revert to the Sunday Express, dropped over 121,000 (10.6%) in sales, and the Express fell by 84,036 (7.0%). The revamped Sunday Express is to have new sections and a new masthead in an attempt to halt these haemorrhaging sales.
Popular Market There has been a decline in sales for the tabloid press for some time now and many of the red-tops have been reported to, or clearly have, been attempting to move up market. All but the Mirror lost sales year on year in this audit.
Whilst the Mirror managed a 90,942 (4.1%) increase in sales, its sister, the Sunday Mirror, dropped a massive 252,000 copies or 11.2% of total circulation. Sunday market leader, the News Of The World, lost over 190,000 copies and the Sunday People dropped by 8.4%.
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