The Financial Times is the only daily to show a year-on-year increase in the latest national newspaper circulation figures for October – released by ABC today.
The FT was up 4.9 per cent on October last year to reach sales of 439,774. The Daily Mail was neither up nor down with an October sale of 2,350,730.
Elsewhere the news is grim. The Daily Mirror shows a drop of 5 per cent to 1,600,452. Its Scottish stablemate, the Daily Record, is down 7.53 per cent to 420,054 and the Daily Star fell by 6 per cent to 770,834. The Sun is down 3.4 per cent. Overall the daily red tops have lost 285,000 copies in a year.
In the quality daily market, the Scottish dailies are suffering. The Herald was down 6.34 per cent to 70,755 and The Scotsman by 9.04 per to 59,299 per cent year-on-year. They cannot be relishing the prospect of The Times beefing up its Scottish edition.
Related
The Guardian was down 4.61 per cent to 384,701and The Times by 6.71 per cent to 656,278. Sales of the Daily Telegraph in the midst of its move to a new multi-media headquarters in Victoria have proved to be robust and were down by just 0.18 per cent to 900,043.
On Sunday, the circulation picture is less grim than that of the dailies. Four papers show a year-on-year increase on October last year. The Independent on Sunday was up 0.06 per cent to 230,184, The Observer by 7.68 per cent to 486,471, the Mail on Sunday by 4.96 to 2,405,901 and the Sunday Telegraph up 1.09 per cent to 668,633.
The Sunday Times, which has became the country's most expensive paper with a £2 cover price, was down 8.37 per cent year-on-year to 1,287,099.
Content from our partners
The People which is cutting its editorial staff is down 12.86 per cent to 789,042 and the News of the World by 8.7 per cent to 3,445,459. The Sunday Mirror shows a fall of 5.62 per cent to 1,375,820.
The Evening Standard, facing competition from thelondonpaper and London Lite, was down just 2.54 per cent on September. Year-on-year the Standard shows a drop of 14.38 per cent with an October figure of 281,915.
Thelondonpaper's distribution of 377,525 copies a day in October has edged in front of London Lite's distribution of 372,580.
The free Metro, aimed at young urbanites, has reported a record distrubution figure of 1,133,000 in the latest ABCs. Editions of the Metro were launched in Cardiff and Liverpool earlier in the year, as well as a ‘mini edition’ for Brighton in September. Distribution in London increased from 495,000 copies per day to 557,000 copies between October 2005 and October 2006.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
