It's a new world out there in UK print media.

According to The Audit Bureau of Circulations, it seems that shortened editions of newspapers could be a good idea, as for the first time ever i's circulation has topped that of The Independent.

What's more, since The News of the World phone-hacking scandal hit News International, things have changed in the circulation game.

OK, so things aren't entirely different - News International is still pretty powerful and print editions are still suffering from an incremental year-on-year drop in circulation, causing ever more anxiety about the fate of the industry - but despite this, the media landscape of Britain does seem to be changing.

According to figures from Mediatel, Associated Newspapers now has the greatest market share of any publishing group. However, the margin is a close one, as in July Associated Newspapers held a market share of 29.95% while News International had 28.76%, as reported by The Press Gazette.

Etude de la Presse d'Information Quotidienne (EPIQ) has released its yearly results on the French press, claiming the French newspaper industry is doing well. Almost one in two French people read one daily newspaper. It reported the power of the press had been stabilized (at a level of -0.1 percent) in the last year.

Electron Libre reported that while Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Parisien saw drops from 2009 to 2010, L'Humanité, France Soir and La Croix saw rises in their audience. At the end of the article, it says, "What a paradox to see the French press progressing while the press in the rest of the world is having trouble conserving its public!"

Not everyone is as inclined as Electron Libre to rejoice over EPIQ's study. OWNI's Erwann Gaucher became curious by the claims after having heard grave statements about the newspaper industry. After analyzing the study, he suggested taking it with a grain of salt.

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has released its State of the Media report for 2011. Among the sections was a report on print media, which became more stable in 2010 than it had been in the past two years. Although no large profits have been made, losses were significantly less.

Circulation has been down for most large newspapers, with smaller dailies and weeklies faring better. The workforce has continued to decline, although more people were hired in 2010 than in recent years. Advertising revenue also went down, but to a much lesser degree than in the past few years. Stock market investors have more faith in the industry than in 2008, but some numbers have gone down since 2009. Overall, American newspapers aren't faring as well as newspapers on other continents, even though both Europe and Australia reported a decline.

The report in its entirety is available here.

Circulation

Circulation has continued to decline, although The Wall Street Journal had a 1.82 percent increase from 2009. Metro daily newspapers were the hardest hit, with Newsday in the lead at -11.84 percent. Smaller dailies and community weeklies have remained steadier, managing to hold onto more of their circulation.

Daily and Sunday circulation are both down. The Sunday editions, however, have still fared better than their daily counterparts.

The number of monthly unique users on Metro.co.uk should hit five million by the end of the year, the daily commuter title pledged as part of a set of targets outlined today, Journalism.co.uk reported.

According to figures presented by Metro, the site had 3.5 million unique monthly browsers on average in November 2010, compared to around one million in November 2009.

Although this figure is low compared to the numbers at the websites major UK dailies, it is interesting that the freesheet's traffic is increasing even in an arena where most competitors' sites are also free.

The article quoted Rich Mead, Metro's assistant managing director, who said this is just the starting point.

As Guardian's Roy Greenslade noted, Metro is far and away Britain's most successful national newspaper: over the past year its distribution has increased as well as its advertising volume and revenue.

Associated Newspapers, the paper's publisher, would not share individual publications' figures, but the Metro team claimed 2010 was Metro's best year.