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August 18, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 4:30pm

London terror reports drive circulation gains

By Press Gazette

By Dominic Ponsford

Coverage of last month’s 7 July London bombings and their aftermath
appears to have boosted newspaper circulations across the board.

In recent months the Evening Standard’s circulation has been dropping by more than 12 per cent year-onyear.

But last month it rose by 3.98 per cent – making a positive sales “swing” of 16 per cent.

When combined with free Lite copies, the Standard achieved a circulation of 448,445 – its highest figure since October 2001.

Standard
managing director Mike Anderson said: “From the euphoria of winning the
Olympic bid to the outrage of the terrorist attacks, the Evening
Standard devotes its energies to keeping readers updated throughout the
day.

“There has been a huge appetite for news over the past month and all our editions have been flying from the newsstands.”

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In
the national market, circulation gains were more modest. The red-top
tabloids slowed their pace of circulation decline in July, dropping
2.27 per cent year-on-year on average, compared with a 4.17 average
drop the month before.

But the circulation of the quality daily
papers went up overall by an average of 0.84 per cent – compared with a
2.54 per cent drop in June.

The Times was the biggest winner,
continuing successive months of growth since turning tabloid. It was up
7.32 per cent year-on-year to 698,043 sales.

Editor Robert
Thomson said: “The extraordinary increase in the sales of The Times
during July indicates the importance of traditional journalistic values
during a time of crisis.”

The Daily Telegraph was also up year-on-year, compared with a slight drop last month. It rose 0.81 per cent to 912,319.

The
Independent posted its first year-on-year circulation drop since it
launched a tabloid version in September 2003, down 2.47 per cent to
255,603.

And The Guardian has slumped to a new circulation low after last month’s performance (which was its worst since June 1978).

It
fell 3.44 per cent year-on-year to 358,345 – possibly feeling the
effects of a suspension of marketing activity pending its expected
relaunch in Berliner format.

The Daily Express was the worst
performing national daily by some way with sales dropping 11.01 per
cent year-on-year to 835,937.

Its Sunday stablemate was not far behind, dropping 9.95 per cent to 887,401.

The
figures for both partly reflect the fact that they have stopped bulk
sales, given away free at places like hotels and airports. This time
last year the Daily Express was giving away around 60,000 free copies
and the Sunday Express 70,000.

The Daily Star is now the top-selling Express Newspapers title – out-selling the Express by 54,000 copies.

In the Sunday market, The Sunday Times and The Observer were the only national newspapers to put on sales year-on-year.

The Observer rose 1.03 per cent to 445,738 and The Sunday Times was up 2.61 per cent to 1,338,616.

Overall,
average circulation of the red-top Sunday tabloids was down 2.21 per
cent year-on-year (compared with a 5.46 per cent drop in June) and the
quality Sundays were up 0.3 per cent on average (compared with a 3.85
per cent drop in June).

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

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