The Financial Times was the only UK national paper to put on sales year-on-year in February, but its success was down purely to overseas sales.

In the UK and Ireland, the FT sold 138,095 copies a day in February — down around 1,000 copies compared with February 2006.

News International's thelondonpaper is now almost 100,000 copies ahead of London Lite, with 494,127 compared with 400,780 for London Lite.

When news emerged that NI's thelondonpaper was increasing its print run by around 100,000 last month, Associated Newspapers responded by condemning it as "irresponsible" and claiming that papers were just being "dumped on the streets."

Ian Clark, thelondonpaper general manager said: "thelondonpaper has
grown by 51% since its launch 6 months ago. This contrasts with a mere
11 per cent for the Lite. With nearly 500,000 copies of thelondonpaper
distributed every day and a massive gap over our rivals, Londoners are
increasingly choosing us as their preferred afternoon read."

The Evening Standard continues to slide in the face of competition from the two frees. It is down 3.8 per cent month on month and 20.4 per cent year on year and now has a circulation of 266,037 including bulks.

Dailies

Daily Mirror: 1,564,082, down 5.59 per cent

Daily Record: 412,844, down 8.32 per cent

Daily Star: 779,023, down 1.63 per cent

The Sun: 3,072,392, down 2.32 per cent

Daily Express: 761,637, down 8 per cent

Daily Mail: 2,339, 733, down 4.08 per cent

The Guardian: 364,491, down 4.82 per cent

Daily Telegraph: 896,476, down 0.52 per cent

Financial Times: 445,276, down 1.01 per cent

The Herald: 71,617, down 6.24 per cent

The Independent: 264,182, down 0.71 per cent

The Scotsman: 58,128, down 10.8 per cent

The Times: 642,711, down 4.03 per cent

Racing Post: 64,728, down 7.97 per cent

Evening Standard: 266,037, down 20.38 per cent

Sundays

Daily Star Sunday: 385,060, down 0.68 per cent

News of the World: 3,371, 369, down 7.13 per cent

Sunday Mail: 508,594, down 5.11 per cent

Sunday Mirror: 1,374,786, down 5.31 per cent

The People: 746,083, down 15.64 per cent

Sunday Sport: 98,682, down 29.38 per cent

Sunday Express: 816,351, down 5.4 per cent

Sunday Post: 431,030, N/A

Mail on Sunday: 2,263,980, down 0.94 per cent

Independent on Sunday: 239,585, down 1.92 per cent

The Observer: 442,137, down 8.72 per cent

Scotland on Sunday: 72,531, down 13.98 per cent

Sunday Herald: 54,366, down 10.52 per cent

Sunday Telegraph: 667,692, down 2.35 per cent

Sunday Times: 1,245,483, down 9.19 per cent