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August ABCs: Star Sunday booms, Sunday Times plunges

By Dominic Ponsford

The Evening Standard continued to put the brakes on its circulation slide in August. Although it was 11.38 per cent down year-on-year, it was 0.86 per cent up month-on-month to 277,555.

Next month will be the first that it is up against figures from more than a year after the launch of the two free evenings so that will be the first real test of whether its sale has stabilised.

Among the national dailies only the Financial Times managed a year-on-year rise – up 2.5 per cent to 426,830.

The Guardian, down 1.96 per cent to 355,750, has now slipped well below its pre-Berliner relaunch sale of two years ago. The Times is also now below the sales levels it reached before going tabloid three years ago – on 638,820 – down 5.36 per cent.

The only paper still ahead on its old broadsheet figures is The Independent – on 239,834, compared with a pre-tabloid switch sale of around 220,000 a day. But it still suffered a severe year-on-year drop by 5.89 per cent to 239,834.

The Daily Star Sunday celebrated its fifth birthday with a whopping 26,45 per cent year-on-year increase from 429,907 to 533,248.

The increase was largely accounted for by a splurge on TV and free CD promotions.

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The only other Sunday papers to put on sales year-on-year were the Mail on Sunday, up 0.89 per cent, and The Observer, up 0.63 per cent.

A damaging 12.14 per cent year-on-year drop to 1,190,108 sales for the Sunday Times appears to be due still the effects of its price rise to £2.

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