The Sun Cuts Cover Price To Keep Circulation Up
The Sun newspaper has cut its cover price from 35p to 20p in the Granada region, in an effort to boost the title’s circulation and keep it above the three million mark.
It is thought that the Granada region accounts for some 250,000 sales of the newspaper. The title is said to be unpopular in parts of the region due largely to its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
Despite having the largest distribution in the daily newspaper market of more than 3.2 million, September’s ABCs showed The Sun to have dropped 83,290 copies year on year, 2.5% of its circulation.
Latest NRS figures show The Sun‘s readership is down slightly in the region compared to the Daily Mirror‘s, with the Mirror‘s last recorded readership at 710,000 and The Sun‘s at 683,000.
The last time The Sun cut its price so drastically for a large regional readership was in response to a price war instigated by the Daily Mirror in 2002. Then the newspaper slashed its price to 30p to undercut the Daily Mirror‘s cover price of 32p.
The Daily Mirror has since steadily pushed its price up and is not thought to be considering any price promotion to counter The Sun‘s initiative. The Sun has been on a promotional price of 10p in Scotland since January.
MediaTel.co.uk subscribers can access full regional NRS figures from the Press Database.
The Sun: www.thesun.co.uk