ABCs - July delivers bouncing Royal Baby and bouncing newspaper sales
Overview by Fiona Booth – Account Director, Insight
Total sales of national newspapers in July bounced up 1.2% on June according to latest circulation figures released by ABC. In a month that saw newsbrands from around the world camped outside St Mary’s Hospital in London on Royal Baby-watch, only three titles lost sales month on month. Longer term, the market is down 7.9% on the same time last year.
There’s no change this month amongst the top three selling titles in the UK, with The Sun holding on to the top spot with an average net circulation in July of 2,281,301, however, it also had the distinction of losing the most actual sales over the year, down almost 270k copies compared to last July. Sister title The Sun (Sunday) held on to the second spot with an average net circulation of 1,927,406, adding the most physical sales on June at a whopping 52k copies. The Daily Mail rounds out the top three, despite being one of the three titles to drop sales month on month, with an average net circulation in July of 1,781,968 – shedding all the copies it picked up last month, and then some.
No change at the bottom either with sister titles The Independent and Independent on Sunday continuing to bring up the rear, The Independent another of the three falling titles this month, selling an average 72,271 and 114,270 copies respectively in July.
The Sunday market fared better than the Daily market compared to last month, up 1.9% and 0.5% respectively. Longer term both were down with the Sundays falling more steeply, down 8.4% compared to last July versus the Dailies down 7.3% for the same period.
All sectors were up this month on last with the Populars seeing the greatest growth, up 1.5% on June, followed closely by the Qualities, up 1.2%. The Daily Mail’s drop in sales left the Mids collectively doing least well, up only 0.6% month on month. Longer term the Populars saw the steepest year on year drop, down 9.6% on the last July, whilst the Mids and Qualities were down 6.5% and 5.6% respectively compared to last year.
The i continues to claim biggest sales gains over the longer term, seeing the greatest actual (circa 25k) and proportional sales (8.9%) compared to last July, and was again the only title in the National market to see any yearly growth. The biggest losses year on year come from the Populars, with The Sun shedding the most physical copies over a year (down almost 270k) and the Daily Star Sunday down 25%.
All figures sourced from ABC