November ABCs indicate low circulation for UK tabloids

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 11, 2009 at 3:05 PM

November was a bad month for two large tabloids in the UK. The News of the World and Sun had their circulations fall below 3 million, a psychologically important figure in the print industry.

The Sun's drop in circulation to 2.9 million is a 2.87% fall from November last year, while November's News of the World dropped 7.3% from last year.

Of the UK's daily national papers, the Trinity Mirror's Daily Mirror fared the worst, experiencing a 10% fall to a mere 1.2 million copies since last year.

However the Daily Mail remains robust after last month's strong showings demonstrating the strongest sector performance with only a 0.7% year-on-year fall in circulation to 2.1 million.

"We have had a sustained investment into all areas of the publishing and marketing mix and they are beginning to deliver," said Roland Agambar, the chief marketing officer at Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers. "The reduction in DVDs [given away] has enabled us invest a greater share of our marketing budget into direct channels, home news delivery and longer term in-paper promotional activity."

The Daily Star was the only paper in this sector to record a rise in circulation, up 15.3% since November last year. Although still under a million copies, this long-term growth shows they're doing something right.

Last month Daily Star Sunday also recorded a 2.95% increase in sales. However, both the daily and Sunday editions fell 1.56% and 5% month-on-month, respectively.

Source: MediaGuardian