ABCs: Financial Times leads daily market with 3.5% sales lift in September

Daily Market

Quality market titles the Financial Times and the Guardian, alongside Metro’s UK footprint, led the daily market in September and were the only newspapers to record an increase in circulation over the period.

A 3.5% period-on-period sales boost added an extra 6,400 copies to the FT, while a small 0.9% increase gave the Guardian an extra 1,300. Metro UK was up 1.6%, amounting to an extra 23,000 copies across the UK.

While the Telegraph and Times saw sales slide slightly compared with the previous month, they were the only two newspapers in the entire daily market to record any year-on-year increase in circulation – up 2.4% and 1.5%, respectively.

In terms of period declines, the Daily Record performed worst with a -2.8% decrease in sales, followed by the Daily Star which was down -1.8% and the Daily Mail, down -1.7%.

However, it was the Mirror that fared worst of all over the year, with a -19.5% decline cutting its total circulation by 150,000 copies.

Sunday Market

The Sunday Times was the only Sunday newspaper to record an increase in circulation over the month, up 0.2%.

By comparison, the worst-performing title period-on-period was the Sunday Express, down -3.3% (-11,000 copies), followed by the Sunday Mail (-3% PoP).

Over the year, the quality market continues to perform well in comparison to the rest of the market, with the Sunday Times down -1.7%, the Observer down -3.4% and the Sunday Telegraph down -5%.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Sunday Mirror was down -22.6% year-on-year, Sunday People down -21.5% YoY and Sunday Mail down -15.9% YoY – resulting in an overall market decline of -10.2% YoY.

London Free Press

Helped by a 4.1% PoP increase in circulation for London Evening Standard and a 1.7% increase for Metro (London), the overall free market was up 2.8% over the month. Even City A.M. enjoyed a very small 0.4% increase.

Equally small decreases over the year at City A.M. (-0.6%) and London Evening Standard (-0.7%) were not enough to offset Metro (London)’s healthy 19.2% increase, which helped boost the market by 7.9% year-on-year.