According to the latest ABC figures, newspaper sales in the UK during November were down 2.2 per cent on October and 8 per cent on last November. Only three titles showed an increase on circulation versus last month – Daily Mail, i and The Guardian – while the Daily Telegraph was the only newspaper to show growth compared to this time last year.
There was no change in the top three selling national titles with the Sun still sitting at the top of the pile in November with an average net circulation of 2,089,752, and the only title selling in excess of 2m copies a day, although the rate of its circulation decline suggests that those days might be numbered. Sister title The Sun (Sunday) was again the second highest selling national title with average sales of 1,748,642 in November. The third biggest selling title in November was still the Daily Mail, with an average net circulation of 1,755,308. There’s no change at the bottom either with sister titles the Independent and Independent on Sunday continuing to bring up the rear on average net circulations of 67,710 and 104,7410 respectively for November. Both the Daily and Sunday markets saw losses month on month but the Sundays saw steeper declines both month and month as well as year on year. The daily titles were down 1.4 per cent on October compared to a drop of 3.1 per cent for the Sundays, and down 7.2 per cent and 8.9 per cent on the same time last year respectively.
By sector, the Qualities had the least worst time of it in November, down 0.8 per cent on last month and 4.6 per cent on last year with all but one of the four titles showing growth in this sector, even if that growth was fairly minimal (i +0.3 per cent and The Guardian +0.4 per cent on October, and Daily Telegraph +0.2 per cent on last November). The Popular sector saw the steepest declines across both short and long term with not one title adding sales, down 3.6 per cent on last month and 10.5 per cent on last year. The mid-market sector circulation losses were closer to the qualities than the populars, down 0.9 per cent on October and 6.5 per cent on last November.
Overview by Fiona Booth, account director, Insight at CaratAll figures sourced from ABC
