National Press Round-Up 1996
1996 was the year in which struggling newspapers continued to lose sales and readership and successful titles went from strength to strength. It also saw the launch of two national newspapers, the Sunday Business and the Planet On Sunday.
Despite revamps, promotions, price cuts and new sections being employed by most titles, circulation trends remained similar throughout the year. Of particular interest was the Express titles’ attempts to reinvent themselves to stem a steadily declining circulation in the face of strengthening Mail papers. This had an initial impact with month on month sales increasing by just over 4,000 but then the decline in sales began again, this time more rapidly than at any time during the year.
The trend for struggling titles to implement changes continued with the Independent launching two new supplements and redesigning its second section. Other new sections in 1996 included Football Mania Plus for the Daily Mirror, an IT section called Connected for the Daily Telegraph, and an entertainment supplement entitled The Directory for the Saturday Times.
In terms of circulation trends, the Sunday Telegraph in particular had a good year, increasing its circulation by over 100,000 and the Times showed a similar increase for the same period. Both the Independent titles suffered lost sales in 1996, with the daily paper losing roughly 27,000 copies and the Sunday 39,000.
The Mid market showed the most pronounced readership trends with the Mail titles recording an overall increase while the Express titles suffered many lost readers. The Express‘s readership fell almost continuously from 3,068,000 for July-December 1995 to 2,784,000 for July-December 1996, while the Express On Sunday lost almost a million readers. It dropped from 3,932,000 for July-December 1995 to 3,078,000 for July-December 1996.
1996 was also characterised by various price changes amongst the main papers, with long-term increases, coupon offers and one-off price cuts occurring. Both at the start of the year and at the end most titles increased their cover-price by a few pence while in the summer The Times caused a stir by cutting the price of its Monday edition to 10p. This was only supposed to be a temporary measure but has now become a permanent price.
Also big news in 1996 was the launch of Tom Rubython’s Sunday Business in April and The Planet On Sunday in June. The former appeared to mixed reviews but against the odds and industry predictions has managed to stay afloat with a weekly circulation estimated to be around 45,000. It has however been a rocky ride for the title due to severe financial difficulties, staff defections and legal actions over unpaid bills. It has since closed its Computer Age supplement and reorganised its senior management board. The Planet On Sunday however, the environmental paper launched in June, survived barely a week after its backer Clifford Hards did not like the editorial style. Another national launch was the Black newspaper New Nation, which hit the news-stands in November as a rival to the Voice.