Regional Newspaper Round-Up
Dailies:
Amongst regional daily newspapers only three titles managed to achieve a year on year percentage increase in circulation into double figures. Top of the list came the Kent Messenger title “Kent Today”, which achieved a 23.2% increase (6,186), almost double growth achieved by the second and third placed titles; “Oxford Mail” and “Journal (Newcastle)” with 12.8% and 12.0% respectively. The vast majority of daily publications displayed very slight falls in circulation. By far and away the largest title, in terms of circulation, is still the “Daily Record”, with a circulation of 756,773 (Jul-Dec 92), a fall of 0.4% on last year’s figures.
| Daily ABC Yr on Yr Top Ten Growers: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| J-D91 | J-D92 | %Ch | |
| Kent Today | 26635 | 32821 | 23.2 |
| Oxford Mail | 37624 | 42442 | 12.8 |
| Journal (Newcastle) | 52375 | 58648 | 12 |
| Nuneaton Wkly Trib | 48973 | 50810 | 3.8 |
| South Wales Argus | 38230 | 39417 | 3.1 |
| Citizen (Glos) | 26436 | 37516 | 3 |
| Belfast Telegraph | 128839 | 130987 | 1.7 |
| Glos. Echo | 27593 | 27915 | 1.2 |
| Aberdeen Press/Jnl | 105800 | 106819 | 1 |
| Torquay Herald Exp | 30617 | 30908 | 1 |
Sundays:
Thomson Regional Newspaper’s “Sunday Life” and Gossavon Ltd’s “Bedfordshire on Sunday”, a free publication, stand out from the rest of the regional Sunday market with year on year circulation increases in excess of 20%. The top six titles in this category are as follows:
| ABC/VFD Top Six Growers (Sundays) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| J-D91 | J-D92 | % Ch | |
| Beds. On Sunday | 109895 | 133314 | 21.3 |
| Sunday Life | 60757 | 73462 | 20.9 |
| Scotland/Sunday | 75826 | 80151 | 5.7 |
| Sunday Ind(Dublin) | 236543 | 247198 | 4.5 |
| Sunday Sun | 117834 | 120256 | 2.1 |
| Wales on Sunday | 53107 | 53957 | 1.6 |
Of the top six, four of the titles are owned by Thomson Regional Newspapers, which suggests that this part of the company’s business is doing well.
Two new titles were launched into the Sunday market late last year-“Yorkshire On Sunday” (Westminster Press) and “News & Post” (David Sullivan’s Sport Publications) – only the former has acquired an ABC certificate – 55,666. The News & Echo initial print run figure as of September ’92 was 250,000 – no further figure has as yet been issued, although local speculation suggests the title is not performing as well as its competitor. Attempts are being made, however, to ‘nationalise’ the paper with recent expansion into the Granada and TT areas, with summer plans to move into Central and Anglia. The most recent closure in this market was the “Sunday News” (N.I.) announced at the end of March – its circulation had fallen by 5.5% (J-D’91/J-D’92).
General:
Since the beginning of the year several newspaper groups have put titles up for sale – the most recent and perhaps most notable has been Thomson Free Newspapers’ sale of its free publications.
The beginning of January saw Reed Regional Newspapers pulling out of the Newspaper Society, although it remains part of Press-Ad.
March’s budget, and its failure to levy VAT on newspapers was a source of much relief amongst all publishers – it had been estimated that should the tax go ahead a fifth of Britain’s regional newspapers would close. It should be noted however that November’s budget may not be so ‘generous’.