Daily and Sunday national newspapers continued to see circulation fall year-on-year in July, with only the i bucking the trend, according to the latest figures from ABC.
But a month which saw newspaper enthusiastically welcome the birth of a royal baby saw most titles increase sales compared with June.
Of the dailies, The Independent suffered the biggest relative fall, seeing its circulation decline by 13.57 per cent year on year. The Daily Star, The Sun and the Financial Times all experienced drops of more than 10 per cent.
The Times performed considerably better than its peers year-on-year, seeing a decline of just 0.95 per cent.
Related
All Sunday papers were down, with the biggest fall suffered by the Daily Star Sunday which lost 25.13 per cent of its circulation.
The Daily Mirror kept its head above the 1m circulation figure, recording a circulation of 1,038,417. But the paper was aided by 30,023 bulk sales not recorded last year.
Despite the expected annual falls in circulation, several papers saw month-on-month circulation figures improve, possibly boosted by the arrival of the Royal baby.
Among daily papers, all except the Daily Mail, The Independent and the FT added circulation compared to June. The biggest winners were The Times (up 2.38 per cent), The Guardian (up 2.24 per cent) and The Daily Telegraph (up 2.14 per cent).
The Daily Express was subjected to some online ribbing this week in Press Gazette as blogger Subscribe took issue with its seemingly formulaic choice of front pages.
But sales-wise it out-performed its mid-market rival the Daily Mail in relative terms last month.
While sales of the Daily Express rose 2.06 per cent month on month, the Daily Mail dropped 1.36 per cent.
The FT’s circulation fell by 5.31 per cent month-on-month, marking the biggest loss among the dailes.
Among the Sunday papers, the Sunday Express (up 4.38 per cent) and The Observer (up 3.74 per cent) had the biggest month-on-month circulation boosts.
UK national newspaper print circulation for July 2013 (source ABC)
Dailies
Name of title: average circulation, year-on-year change, month-on-month change
- Daily Mirror: 1,040,148, down 3.87 per cent, up 0.13 per cent
- Daily Record: 249,733, down 9.36 per cent, down 1.15 per cent
- Daily Star: 544,811, down 12.63 per cent, up 0.73 per cent
- The Sun: 2,281,301, down 10.57 per cent, up 1.67 per cent
- Daily Express: 533,039, down 4.05 per cent, up 2.06 per cent
- Daily Mail: 1,781,968, down 7.25 per cent, down 1.36 per cent
- The Daily Telegraph: 558,817, down 3.86 per cent, up 2.14 per cent
- Financial Times: 244,768, down 15.82 per cent, down 5.31 per cent
- The Guardian: 191,182, down 8.68 per cent, up 2.24 per cent
- i: 305,129, up 8.93 per cent, up 0.70 per cent
- The Independent: 72,271, down 13.57 per cent, down 1.08 per cent
- The Times: 400,245, down 0.95 per cent, up 2,38 per cent
Sundays
- Daily Star Sunday: 341,733, down 25.13 per cent, up 1.75 per cent
- The Sun Sunday:1,927,406, down 10.66 per cent, up 2.78 per cent
- Sunday Mail: 281,157, down 9.90 per cent, down 1.02 per cent
- Sunday Mirror:1,045,341, down 3.02 per cent, up 0.75 per cent
- Sunday People: 419,115, down 8.70 per cent, up 0.97 per cent
- Sunday Express:475,848, down 5.49 per cent, up 4.38 per cent
- Sunday Post: 242,033, down 12.39 per cent, down 0.91 per cent
- The Mail on Sunday: 1,658,035, down 6.82 per cent, up 1.22 per cent
- Independent on Sunday: 114,270 down 3.78 per cent, up 2.04 per cent
- The Observer: 220,315, down 10.11 per cent, up 3.74 per cent
- The Sunday Telegraph: 436,730, down 4.33 per cent, up 3.35 per cent
- The Sunday Times: 844,767, down 8.12 per cent, up 0.54 per cent
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
