NRS national newspaper round-up: Oct 2012 – Sept 2013

The latest NRS national newspaper figures once again paint a sorry picture for print, with just three titles recording any growth in readership at all for the period October 2012 to September 2013.

Daily titles

In the quality market, the only celebrations to be had were for the Financial Times and ‘i’ – though only small – up 3.9% and 1.2%, respectively.

Over the period, the Guardian lost 172,000 readers, resulting in the newspaper’s readership slipping below the million mark.

Despite sister paper ‘i’ bagging an extra 7,000 readers, the Independent was down 113,000 (-22.3%) – marginally ahead of the Financial Times which averaged almost 300,000 loyal print readers.

In the mid market, the Daily Express‘ -11.9% decrease saw the paper shed over 150,000 readers, while the Daily Mail’s -1.2% decline resulted in an overall loss of 51,000.

The popular market fared even worse, with the Sun losing almost 1 million readers across the period, followed by the Daily Mirror (423,000) and the Daily Star (263,000).

Sunday titles

Of all the Sunday titles, just the Sunday Times recorded an increase in readership, up 0.6% to net an extra 14,000 readers.

Elsewhere in the quality market, the Observer was down almost 150,000 readers to 905,000, while the Sunday Telegraph and Independent on Sunday were both down -5.6% and -11.8%, respectively.

The mid market saw the Sunday Express shed more than 20% of its readers, while the Mail on Sunday’s -6.9% decrease lost the newspaper almost 340,000.

Though the Sunday People recorded a huge -41.8% decrease in readership, it was the Sunday Mirror that suffered the most, losing 969,000 readers.

The Sun on Sunday followed in the footsteps of its daily counterpart – down -10.5% and shedding over 600,000 readers – while the Daily Star Sunday was down -20.3%.