The Daily Mirror’s decision to pay convicted killer Tony Martin £125,000 may have paid dividends with the paper’s sales pushing back through the two million mark for the ?rst time since February, writes Dominic Ponsford.
But although, like the other redtops, the Mirror was up month-onmonth for August, its rolling sixmonth sales ?gure was still down 6.96 per cent compared with the year before.
The only big circulation winners for the silly season were the Richard Desmond titles – possibly helped by the other big August buy-up, John Leslie.
The Daily Star’s apparent editorial policy of boobs, celebs and more boobs has seen its circulation soar ever upward towards the million mark. It was up a whopping 26.78 per cent for the last six months year-on-year to 928,572. And it is the only national paper to be up compared with August 2002.
Last year Sunday Express editor Martin Townsend made a bet on Radio Five Live that his paper would overtake The Mail on Sunday within ?ve years. While that still looks optimistic, he made some progress towards his goal in August with sales up 4.53 per cent month-on-month compared to the MoS’s 1.95 per cent decline.
Scotland on Sunday was the big winner among the broadsheets, enjoying its usual August sales boost buoyed by the Edinburgh Festival and the Military Tattoo.
The heavily promoted new monthly CD-Rom for The Sunday Times cost News International £10m and was inserted for the ?rst time on 31 August. But it hasn’t yet helped sales for the top-selling Sunday broadsheet which are down compared with July and with August 2002.
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