Sales of the Independent’s 20p-a-day spin-off daily i are down to about 70,000 a day, according to a report in The Guardian.
If true, that is bad news for the Independent team. Managing director Andrew Mullins told Press Gazette in October that 200,000-sales-a-day of i, and no further deterioration in sales of The Independent, would be enough to see them home and dry. This would give owner Alexander Lebedev a portfolio circulation of one million a day (with the Evening Standard) and surely be a big enough target for his ad sales teams to sell against.
Anecdotal evidence from newsagents has i sales well down since launch on 26 October. But then again everyone I speak to who has picked up i says they like it and think it fantastic value for 20p.
We will just have to wait until midday on 10 December (the next national ABC figures) or possibly 14 January (the one after that) when we should get i’s official launch circulation figure.
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