NRS National Newspaper Round-Up: January 2009 – December 2009
Daily Newspaper Market
NRS figures for January to December 2009 reveal year on year readership growth for titles in the Quality and Popular sectors, while one title in the Mid-Market remained relatively static
In the Quality sector, the Financial Times was up on 2008, while there was a healthy increase for Popular title the Daily Star.
Of the two Mid-Market titles in our analysis, the Daily Express saw its total remain relatively static year on year.
Quality Daily Titles
The Financial Times saw its readership grow by almost 4% year on year in 2009, to hit a total of 434,000 readers. The Daily Telegraph performed admirably, with its total sticking at around the 1.9 million readers mark, the highest in the Quality sector. The Telegraph increased its cover price to £1 in October, leaving News International’s Times as the cheapest national quality newspaper at 90p until January this year.
This followed hot on the heels of the Guardian‘s cover price increase to £1 at the start of September. The Guardian suffered the largest year on year fall in readership of the Quality dailies, down 7.5% to around 1.1 million.
Down by 2.5% and around 2% year on year respectively, the Independent‘s readership now rests at around 670,000 readers, while the Times‘ total is just under 1.8 million.
Mid-Market Daily Titles
In the Mid-Market, the Daily Express remained relatively static year on year with a readership of just under 1.6 million.
Following a 2.5% drop, the Daily Mail now has around 4.9 million readers. Despite this, it remains the second most read national daily newspaper.
Popular Daily Titles
Moving on to the Popular titles, there was a big increase for the Daily Star, up 10.5% year on year to just under 1.6 million readers. It was, however, the only popular daily to record an increase on 2008’s figures.
Scotland’s Daily Record shed around 11.5% of its readership year on year, leaving its total hovering around the one million mark, while the Daily Mirror was down by almost 5% to around 3.4 million readers.
The most read of all the national dailies, the Sun, now has a total readership figure of just under 7.8 million readers after a 1.4% year on year fall.
| Daily Titles | Jan 08-Dec 08 | Jan 09-Dec 09 | Actual Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | ||||
| Daily Telegraph | 1,901,000 | 1,905,000 | 4,000 | 0.2 |
| Financial Times | 418,000 | 434,000 | 16,000 | 3.8 |
| Guardian | 1,240,000 | 1,147,000 | -93,000 | -7.5 |
| Independent | 688,000 | 671,000 | -17,000 | -2.5 |
| Times | 1,813,000 | 1,773,000 | -40,000 | -2.2 |
| Mid Market | ||||
| Daily Express | 1,571,000 | 1,577,000 | 6,000 | 0.4 |
| Daily Mail | 5,062,000 | 4,934,000 | -128,000 | -2.5 |
| Popular | ||||
| Daily Mirror | 3,600,000 | 3,425,000 | -175,000 | -4.9 |
| Daily Record | 1,160,000 | 1,026,000 | -134,000 | -11.6 |
| Daily Star | 1,427,000 | 1,577,000 | 150,000 | 10.5 |
| Sun | 7,872,000 | 7,761,000 | -111,000 | -1.4 |
Sunday Newspaper Market
In the Sunday national newspaper market, just three titles added readers over the past twelve months.
The Independent on Sunday suffered the biggest percentage decline of all the Sunday papers once again.
Quality Sunday Titles
The Independent on Sunday lost around 15% of its readers year on year, leaving it with a total of 612,000.
The Evening Standard-owner Alexander Lebedev is currently in the process of buying the struggling title from Independent News & Media, who have been forced to offload the Indy titles as part of a restructuring plan, which aims to reduce the company’s overall debt by €350 million.
The Observer also saw its readership drop in the twelve-month period, down 6.4% to below 1.3 million in total.
The Guardian News & Media-owned title relaunched last week with four redesigned sections; News, Sport, the New Review and the Observer Magazine.
Speaking about the new-look Observer, GNM’s commercial sales director Simon Kilby said: “We hope that the new Observer will really offer something different in a cluttered weekend market.”
Elsewhere, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph both managed to buck the downward trend. The Sunday Times increased its readership by 0.5% year on year to 3.2 million, while the Sunday Telegraph was up 0.3% to 1.7 million readers.
Mid-Market Sunday Titles
Both Mid-Market titles in our analysis lost readers, with the Mail on Sunday down 4% year on year and the Sunday Express falling by 7.1%.
The Mail on Sunday now has a total of just under 5.4 million readers, while the Sunday Express has 1.6 million.
Popular Sunday Titles
The Daily Star Sunday continues to perform well, with a substantial 10.9% uplift in readers, giving it a total of 943,000.
All other titles in the Popular sector posted year on year declines.
The People shed 12.4% of its readership, taking it down to 1.3 million, while the Sunday Mirror lost 2.1%, leaving it with less than 3.9 million.
The News of the World, meanwhile, still boasts an impressive readership of more than 7.6 million, despite suffering a 1.9% year on year fall.
| Sunday Titles | Jan 08-Dec 08 | Jan 09-Dec 09 | Actual Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | ||||
| Independent On Sunday | 720,000 | 612,000 | -108,000 | -15.0 |
| Observer | 1,379,000 | 1,291,000 | -88,000 | -6.4 |
| Sunday Telegraph | 1,703,000 | 1,708,000 | 5,000 | 0.3 |
| Sunday Times | 3,221,000 | 3,238,000 | 17,000 | 0.5 |
| Mid Market | ||||
| Mail On Sunday | 5,612,000 | 5,387,000 | -225,000 | -4.0 |
| Sunday Express | 1,752,000 | 1,628,000 | -124,000 | -7.1 |
| Popular | ||||
| Daily Star Sunday | 850,000 | 943,000 | 93,000 | 10.9 |
| News Of The World | 7,795,000 | 7,650,000 | -145,000 | -1.9 |
| People | 1,536,000 | 1,345,000 | -191,000 | -12.4 |
| Sunday Mirror | 3,968,000 | 3,884,000 | -84,000 | -2.1 |
Figures for this report can be found in the Press database.