Regional Press Halts Sales Decline In Latest ABCs

The regional and local newspaper industry has all but halted its decline in sales according to the latest ABC figures and the Newspaper Society (NS). In the July-December 1998 audit period, 65% of all regional titles increased sales compared to 56% for the same period in 1997 and 45% the year before that.

The figures show that the rate of decline for the regional press overall has almost halted, from 2.2% four years ago to a decline of just 0.5% in 1998.

“These latest figures confirm that we are witnessing a consistent and sustained recovery in regional press sales over the past four years,” says NS marketing director Chris Stanley. He adds: “But although the picture is one of robust growth for the weeklies and stability overall, we cannot afford to be complacent. One of the major challenges for the industry is to make the final leap into positive growth across all sectors.”

The weeklies performed the most strongly in these ABCs, attaining a year on year growth of 1.0% for what is the largest sector of regional publishing. The second largest sector, the evening papers, held their rate of decline steady at 1.2%. Overall the regional press industry’s rate of decline is lower than that of the national newspapers:

The top ten regional evening papers, by circulation, are shown below:

Source: ABC

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