News of the World closure sees The Daily Star Sunday, The People and The Sunday Mirror profit
Sunday titles such as The Sunday Mirror and the Daily Star Sunday have been the main benefactors of the closure of the News of the World, with the Daily Star picking up more than half its circulation sales in recent months.
Unlike the daily newspaper market, Sunday titles enjoyed growth, mainly due to the loss of the News of the World, as The Daily Star Sunday saw an increase of 56.92% on the same period in 2010, growing from 363,176 copies being sold, to reach 596,888 this year.
As expected, the Sunday Mirror was the largest benefactor as it claimed 430,044 new readers, a growth of 37.68%.
Elsewhere, the Sunday Mail saw a modest growth of 0.23% and the People a rise of 35% in newspaper sales, while the Sunday Express increased by 11.48% and The Mail on Sunday growing by 3,.40%. However The Sunday Post fell despite the loss of the NoW, by 2.68%.
Other declines were experienced by the Independent on Sunday (2.48%), The Observer (12.70%), Scotland on Sunday (7.88%), Sunday Herald (27.43%), The Sunday Telegraph (4.64%) and The Sunday Times (7.51%).
Daily national newspaper circulations have continued to decline according to the latest ABC figures with the Daily Mirror, Daily Record, The Sun and The Daily Star all recording losses, alongside the rest of the daily newspaper titles.
The Daily Mirror saw a fall in average daily circulation of 5.82% between May and October – losing 71,693 daily readers to 1,160,033, while The Sun lost a greater amount of 6.42%, a loss of 185,321 average sales each day to 2,783,618.
Across the rest of the National Morning Popular titles, The Daily Record saw its circulation decline by 6.71% to 303,404 copies, while The Daily Star reached 693,389 copies, a decrease of 16.76%. This was a total decline across the morning popular sector of 7.91% (424,452).
National Mid-market titles the Daily Express and the Daily Mail also saw a decline in print readership, losing circulation of 5.71% and 4.10% respectively.