PAMCo: Mail readership declines as Indy hits new high

The latest cross-platform audience figures for UK newsbrands show a mixed bag of results in an otherwise healthy market.

PAMCo – which shows ‘total brand reach’ by combining print and digital across different devices – reveals that eight out of the thirteen national titles reported growth in readership period-on-period, with five reporting a decline.

The Daily Record reported the highest growth rate, up more than 39% – although its audience size remains modest compared with many other titles in the popular market at 5.8m.

By comparison, the Sun grew its total brand reach by 10.5% to almost 33m across print and digital, and the Daily Mirror by 8.4% to more than 27.4m

Meanwhile, in the quality market, the Guardian retains the largest audience, in part due to its open-access policy which is supported via an optional reader payment scheme.

The title has a total reach of almost 24m (down -4% PoP), with only a fraction of that now in print.

Close behind, digital-only Independent recorded the strongest growth in the quality market – up almost 18% PoP to a total reach of 23m, largely on mobile.

In third place, and operating a tiered subscription model online, is the Daily Telegraph with total reach just over 21.5m, of which only 2.9m is in print. The title was down -5.1% PoP and -14.6% YoY.

Meanwhile, the Times – operating with a hard paywall model – grew its readership by just 0.8% PoP and 7.1% year-on-year to a total reach of more than 8.6m. The title still retains a loyal print readership of 4.4m.

Some of the titles down this period include the Mail, which suffered an 18.8% decline, but sill commands an impressive reach of 25.3m (and was perhaps the victim of Google algorithm change); and The Evening Standard, which was down -6.5% PoP, but up 12.7% YoY.