Scottish Mail on Sunday halts circulation decline in November
The Scottish Mail on Sunday notched up a 1.8% year-on-year increase in sales in November - from 100,016 to 101,819 which is good news for a newspaper which is unlikely to have benefited from the demise of the News of the World in July, and was down by 1.2% year-on-year in October
The sales rise is contained in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures which reveal that the Daily Star of Scotland-Sunday, the Sunday Mail, the Sunday Mirror, The People and the Scottish Sunday Express continue to benefit from the demise of the News of the World in July - although it now looks as if the circulations of these papers are settling down into a permanent pattern four months on.
On the dailies front, it is very much the same pattern as in October with every paper –save i – showing a continued marked downturn in sales although the Scottish Daily Mail which will take heart from the fact that it is down by only 3% - from 112,404 to 109,017.
The latest ABC figures report on newspaper sales in Scotland between November last year and last month.They are:
DAILIES
Daily Mirror: 7.7% drop - from 24,343 on average last November, to 22,464 last month.
Daily Record: 7.8% drop - from 289,720 to 266,969.
Daily Star of Scotland: 16.3% drop - from 75,595 to 63,259.
The Scottish Sun: 7.3% drop - from 338,246 to 313,406.
Scottish Daily Express: 9.9% drop - from 69,917 to 62,935.
Scottish Daily Mail: 3% drop - from 112,404 to 109,017.
Daily Telegraph: 5.5% drop- from 20,609 to 19,475.
Financial Times: 15.4% drop – from 4164 to 3523.
The Herald: 12.2% drop - from 52,545 to 46,102.
The Guardian: 8.8% drop – from 13,607 to 12,409.
Independent: 11.4% drop - from 7909 to 7010.
The Scotsman: 7.6 % drop - from 41,752 to 38,559.
The Times: 11.7% drop – from 21,586 to 19,068.
SUNDAYS
Daily Star of Scotland – Sunday: 123.4 % up – from 26,220 to 58,580;
Sunday Mail: 2.7% up - from 350,883 to 360,458;
Sunday Mirror: 81% up – from 21,995 to 39,888.
The People: 79% up - from 13,323 to 23,889.
Scottish Sunday Express: 25.3% up - from 35,035 to 43,905.
Sunday Post: 1.2% down – from 226,274 to 223,424.
Scottish Mail on Sunday: 1.8% up – from 100,016 to 101,819.
Independent on Sunday: 8.6% up - from 6278 to 6819.
Observer: 5.3% down - from 17,991 to 17,031.
Scotland on Sunday: 11.6% down - from 52,912 to 46,792.
Sunday Herald: 28.3% down - from 41,314 to 29.610.
Sunday Telegraph: 3.5% down - from 17,715 to 17,087.
Sunday Times: 11.2% down - from 59,239 to 52,605.
Meanwhile, media pundit, Roy Greenslade, in The Guardian, draws attention to the ever-falling combined circulation of the UK's national daily newspapers.
He points out: "In the month of November, the 11 daily paid-for national titles sold an average of 8,897,221 copies a day.
"Just one year ago (before The Independent's launch of i), the 10 titles together totalled 9,540,993.
"In other words, despite the addition of a new newspaper, sales of Britain's main national morning dailies have fallen by 6.75% in 12 months.
"That's a true picture of the accelerating decline of print. We have to take account of important factors, such as publishers giving up bulk sales and retreating from foreign sales.
"Even so, allowing for those reductions, the downward pressure on circulations continues apace."