National Press Round-Up – 1991

Throughout 1991, the national newspaper market remained unsettled and visibly affected by the current economic climate. Many papers experienced substantial drops in both circulation and readership.

During the course of the year virtually all of the national papers either underwent some form of redesign or launched a new section, in an attempt to boost sales and attract new ad revenue.

In March the two major popular dailies, The Sun and Daily Mirror , took advantage of the deregulation of TV listings information and launched listings supplements within their Saturday editions. For a while the Mirror’s TV Weekly was available as a paid-for stand alone title as well but reverted to being purely a supplement when sales failed to take off.

Today underwent a revamp in March when it joined News International’s other titles at Wapping. The redesign, which included a size reduction to match that of The Sun, failed to change the paper’s downward spiral. Throughout the year Today maintained the fastest falling circulation of all the daily titles.

The other title experiencing huge circulation drops , The People , also made a number of changes in March, including the replacement of its magazine with a colour tabloid pull-out section called Weekend People.

In April The Sun concentrated its efforts into increasing classified advertising revenue by launching The Answer, a supplement for the London region containing only classified advertising. Later in the year some local editorial was added to the supplement.

In May The Guardian launched a tabloid entertainment section, The Guide, with its Saturday edition. After much publicity, 49% of Mirror Group Newspapers was floated on the stock market . Shares were made available at 125p each, with buyers oblivious to the turmoil that would come at the end of the year.

In June, following her appointment as editor, Eve Pollard instigated a revamp for The Sunday Express. The redesign included the launch of the tabloid Part 2 section containing lifestyle and leisure features. Whilst not having a dramatic impact on sales, the MEAL pagination figures show that Part 2 attracted substantial amounts of display advertising. The Independent on Sunday’s editor, Stephen Glover, resigned over Newspaper Publishing’s decision to merge its two papers into a 7-day operation. The primary objective of the merger was to cut costs. Later in the year Newspaper Publishing secured an £8.25m re-financing package involving a rights issue.

In September, The Times followed the pattern set by other quality titles and introduced a broadsheet Weekend section which focuses on leisure time.

The Sport finally went daily in October with the launch of the Monday and Saturday editions.

Circulations Monthly circulations for the national newspapers fluctuated throughout the year with all titles experiencing large falls at some time.

The Financial Times recorded a circulation of 289,000 in January and ended the year with the same figure. The intervening months saw a high of 293,000 (November) and a low of 279,000 (August).

The Guardian’s circulation fell consistently for the first eight months of the year but began to recover slightly in September. Sales for the Sunday Times fluctuated with the highest figure being recorded in February (1,221,000).

Among the mid-market titles, The Daily Express lost circulation dramatically. It began the year with sales of 1,591,000 but in November and December recorded sales of well below 1,500,000. The Daily Mirror also suffered,although to nowhere near the same extent.

The Mail on Sunday experienced falls for the first six-months but picked up again in the second half of the year.

Sales for the popular newspapers consistenty fell, with the exception of The Sunday Mirror, which was the only title of all the national newspapers to end the year with a higher circulation. In January it recorded a figure of 2,769,000 and in December it recorded a figure of 2,784,000. This is especially notable as December is traditionally a poor month for newspaper sales. The paper itself attributed the increase to the Maxwell saga.

The six-monthly circulations for the first half of the year show five titles increasing their sales year-on-year – Daily Express, Daily Mail, Guardian, Mail on Sunday and Observer. Of these only The Mail on Sunday retained the increase for the second half of the year.

The July-December ’91 circulations also showed a year-on-year increase for the Independent on Sunday. This had had no figures for comparison in the first six months of the year.