National Press Round-Up – April

Qualities

April saw the majority of the quality titles suffering a drop in circulation compared to last year. The Times however continued to improve, up by 3.79% or over 23,000 copies to 654,213 copies. The Financial Times was the only other quality daily to improve its monthly figure year on year, up by 0.46%, or 1,342 copies to 292,296.

April is traditionally a lower month for circulation because of the Easter holiday, and despite the launch of new computing sections from the Telegraph and the Independent, all the qualities lost circulation compared to last month. Total quality circulation this month was down by 56,000 copies year on year and 79,000 month on month.

In the month when a £23 million cash injection for the Independent titles was announced, the Independent’s circulation was down by 5.26% year on year or 15,000 copies to 276,029. This is its lowest circulation since December 1994. The Independent on Sunday fared no better, down 9.77% or 32,678 copies to just above the 300,000 mark, 301,564, again its worse figure since December 1994.

The Observer, under the leadership of a new editor, Will Hutton and deputy editor, Paul Webster, did well to increase its circulation on last year, up by 0.55% or 2,507 to 457,775. It was the Sunday Times though, that fared best of all the quality titles, up by 4.25% or over 52,000 copies to 1.29 million.

Neither the Daily Telegraph or the Sunday Telegraph had a good month; the Daily Telegraph lost 30,000 copies on last year, whilst its sister title lost over 54,000 copies year on year. The Sunday Telegraph underwent a revamp at the end of the month to coincide with the launch of Tom Rubython’s new national Sunday Business. Launching on 21 April, the new national containing purely business news managed a first week’s circulation of 145,000 copies, dropping to 105,000 the second week. With no advertising campaign surrounding the launch, the new title has yet to prove as much of a threat to the other nationals as they had originally feared.

Mid Markets

Associated’s Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday recorded the best performance year on year of all the national newspapers; the Daily Mail was up by 13.68% to 2.06 million; the Mail on Sunday was up by 8.69% to 2.118 million. Both titles also managed an increase month on month.

The famililar story in April was again the Express titles falling; the Daily Express lost 3.44% or 44,000 copies year on year, whilst the Sunday Express suffered more heavily, down 13.58%. April saw both Express titles step up their sports coverage with the launch of new sections, but the success of these will not be seen until next month.

Populars

Overall circulation amongst the popular nationals was down in April, by 2.24% or 452, 000 copies year on year; and down by 73,000 on last month. The national newspaper that recorded the best increase on March was Mirror Group’s People, up 1.74% to 2,066,809. The Sunday Mirror also managed an increase, up 0.06% to 2,402,663. In terms of year on year change, only the People and the Daily Star improved circulations; the Star was up 1.3% to 741,946, and the People 0.14% to 2,066,809.

The Daily Mirror and the Sun both fell year on year by around 1%, but the bigger casualties were the News of the World, down 4.17%, the Sunday Mirror, down 5.28% and the Sunday Sport, down 13.58%.