NRS National Newspaper Round-Up – March 2002
NRS figures for National Newspapers in the period October 2001 to March 2002 shows that year on year overall readership has inched up 0.2% to 66.39 million. The largest fluctuations in readership, in a year on year analysis, were seen among the broadsheets.
The best performer in both percentage and actual numbers terms was the Guardian, which saw a 29.5% increase in readership compared to the same period a year ago. Its readership now stands at 1.27 million, more or less the same as its Sunday sister the Observer, which saw a 20.1% year on year increase.
The Daily Telegraph saw a 13% increase to 2.5 million while the Times was up 9.2% in readership to 1.76 million.
At the opposite end of the scale, the Independent saw its readership shrink 11.7% to 504,000. This was the worst performance in percentage terms, but the largest loss in terms of actual numbers was at daily tabloid market leader, the Sun, which shed over 450,000 readers. This loss was closely followed by the Sunday Mirror, which shed 437,000 readers or 7.6% year on year. The Sunday Times’ readership also took a blow in this period, dropping 8.1% to 3.1 million.
| National Newspaper NRS Figures – March 2002 | ||||
| Title | Oct 00- Mar 01 | Oct 01- Mar 02 | Actual Change | % Change |
| Daily Express | 2,119,000 | 2,050,000 | -69,000 | -3.3 |
| Daily Mail | 5,655,000 | 5,845,000 | 190,000 | 3.4 |
| Daily Mirror | 5,667,000 | 5,569,000 | -98,000 | -1.7 |
| Daily Record | 1,616,000 | 1,629,000 | 13,000 | 0.8 |
| Daily Star | 1,459,000 | 1,548,000 | 89,000 | 6.1 |
| Daily Telegraph | 2,197,000 | 2,482,000 | 285,000 | 13.0 |
| Financial Times | 599,000 | 652,000 | 53,000 | 8.8 |
| Guardian | 981,000 | 1,270,000 | 289,000 | 29.5 |
| Independent | 571,000 | 504,000 | -67,000 | -11.7 |
| Independent On Sunday | 635,000 | 650,000 | 15,000 | 2.4 |
| Mail On Sunday | 5,898,000 | 6,190,000 | 292,000 | 5.0 |
| News Of The World | 10,335,000 | 10,237,000 | -98,000 | -0.9 |
| Observer | 1,061,000 | 1,274,000 | 213,000 | 20.1 |
| Sun | 9,554,000 | 9,100,000 | -454,000 | -4.8 |
| Sunday Express | 2,170,000 | 2,147,000 | -23,000 | -1.1 |
| Sunday Mirror | 5,720,000 | 5,283,000 | -437,000 | -7.6 |
| Sunday People | 3,105,000 | 3,021,000 | -84,000 | -2.7 |
| Sunday Telegraph | 1,965,000 | 2,106,000 | 141,000 | 7.2 |
| Sunday Times | 3,356,000 | 3,085,000 | -271,000 | -8.1 |
| Times | 1,608,000 | 1,756,000 | 148,000 | 9.2 |
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