The Daily Star and Sunday People have both moved down a place in Press Gazette’s monthly table of UK national newspapers by ABC print circulation.
The Daily Star, owned by Reach, saw a month-on-month print decline of 3% in June and a year-on-year drop of 17% to 103,730.
This meant it moved below the Financial Times, which was on 104,223 (up 0.5% month on month and down 6% year on year, the smallest annual drop among the newspapers publicly audited by ABC).
The Daily Star announced a revamp and redesign in June promising to deliver “news with a wink” and “focus on more exclusive content for our readers”. The changes also included ditching page three models and a new logo.
Meanwhile weekly tabloid the Sunday People, also owned by Reach, was down by 5% compared to May and 24% compared to June 2024 putting it on an average circulation of 40,688 in June.
This meant it fell below Reach’s Scottish newspaper title the Daily Record, which was steady month on month and fell 17% year on year to 40,736.
National newspaper circulations in June 2025 (ABC) with monthly and yearly changes – this page will be updated monthly:
The column for bulks refers to copies which are circulated for free at venues such as airports and hotels.
Read more: Widening gulf between weekday and Saturday UK newspaper sales revealed
The above figures do not include the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep their ABC circulations private since the start of 2020. The Guardian and Observer joined them in September 2021.
The last ABC figures we have for these titles are as follows:
- The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)
- The Sun on Sunday: 1,013,777 (March 2020)
- The Sunday Times: 647,622 (March 2020)
- The Times: 365,880 (March 2020)
- Daily Telegraph: 317,817 (December 2019)
- Sunday Telegraph: 248,288 (December 2019)
- The Observer: 136,656 (July 2021)
- The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)
If these titles have fallen in line with rest of the industry their current circulations as of February 2025 would be as follows (these are ball-park estimates):
- The Sun: 630,000
- The Sun on Sunday: 540,000
- The Sunday Times: 290,000
- The Times: 160,000
- Daily Telegraph: 170,000
- Sunday Telegraph: 115,000
- The Observer: 75,000
- The Guardian: 55,000
2000-present
We have also charted the longer-term change in ABC circulation over the past 20 years across the UK press.
These charts show the extent of the print decline from The Sun reaching 3.76m in 2000 and the Sun on Sunday’s launch in February 2012 with a short-lived 3.21m before dropping to just above 2m.
Meanwhile, though the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail once were competitive in print reach at around 2.3m-2.4m in 2000, the Mail now has a circulation three times the size of its former rival.
The Sunday tabloids all saw a spike in 2011 after the closure of the News of the World but few retained the readers – the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror did best at doing so, but largely lost them when the Sun on Sunday launched.
Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the UK's most popular newspapers:
May 2025
The Daily Star Sunday was the only UK national newspaper to see print circulation growth in May.
The Reach title's circulation was up 0.6% month on month to 57,425 in May. However its typical rate of annual decline continued, dropping by 17%.
The i Paper was ahead of the Daily Express for the first time in April and continued to be so in May.
The i Paper was down 1.3% month on month and 5.7% year on year to 117,804 while the Daily Express was down by 1% and 16.2% respectively to 117,789.
The biggest year-on-year circulation decline was again at The Sunday People, down 21.1% to 42,700 along with Scottish paper the Sunday Mail down 21.2% to 38,076.
April 2025
Several UK national newspapers avoided month-on-month print circulation decline in April, according to the latest ABC figures.
The Daily Record saw 1.9% growth compared to March, with an average print circulation of 42,479.
Others to stay steady or see marginal growth were the Mail on Sunday (up 0.3% to 544, 900), Daily Mail (0.2%, 650,235), The i Paper (0.2%, 119,395), Sunday Mail (0.2%, 39,361) and Daily Mirror (0%, 196,897).
However, every paid-for title continued to see year-on-year decline. The smallest was at the Financial Times (down 3.6% to 105,885) and The i Paper (down 5.4%).
The Sunday People continued to be the newspaper with the biggest annual circulation decline (down 20.6% to 44,096). Several titles were down by about 18%: the Daily Star Sunday (57,065), the Daily Express (119,020), the Daily Record, the Sunday Mail and the Sunday Express (103,853).
March 2025
Reach tabloid The Sunday People saw the biggest annual print circulation decline among the UK's publicly-audited national newspapers in March.
The Sunday People had an average circulation of 44,140, which was down by 3.5% compared to February and by 22.8% compared to March 2024.
The biggest month-on-month decline was at Reach title for Scotland the Daily Record, down 3.8% to 41,676 (with decline of 19.6% year on year).
The Financial Times was the only paid-for title to see month-on-month growth, up 1% to 107,936.
It also had the smallest year-on-year decline, down 1.1%. The FT's ABC circulation is notably different from other papers, however, with 52% coming from outside the UK and 28.7% made up of bulk copies distributed in locations like airports and hotels.
February 2025
The print circulation of the Daily Mirror dropped below 200,000 in February for the first time since the Edwardian era.
The Daily Mirror saw its print circulation decline to 196,150, a drop of 4.5% compared to January and of 16.4% since February 2024.
Sister title the Sunday Mirror was down 1.5% month on month and 17.3% year on year to 144,733.
The Daily Mirror's cover price has more than doubled since 2010 to £1.70 per day, a tactic which has defended circulation revenue while at the same time possibly hastening decline.
After a reshuffle in our monthly ranking in January due to the Sunday Express falling below the Financial Times by print circulation, the titles are back in their previous positions.
The Sunday Express had a smaller month-on-month drop of 0.9% to 107,838 although it was down 16.8% year on year.
The Financial Times, which includes bulk copies in locations like airports and hotels and global print readership in its ABC figure, was down 2.8% month on month and 1.2% year on year to 106,871.
The biggest monthly drop was at the Daily Mail, down 5% to 652,866.
The smallest year-on-year drop among paid titles was at The i Paper, down 5.3% to 119,333.
The Mail titles also report their digital editions separately. The Daily Mail had 92,308 active views in February while the Mail on Sunday had 95,829.
January 2025
The Daily Mail's print circulation has increased month on month for the second month in a row.
The Daily Mail was read by an average of 687,063 people each day in January 2025, up 2% month on month to its highest ABC print circulation since May last year.
The paper's circulation was down 7% year on year.
Also up month on month was the Daily Express, where print circulation was up 1% to 128,551.
The i saw the smallest year-on-year drop among paid-for titles, down 3% to 122,487.
Also this month the Sunday Express saw its total print distribution fall below that of the Financial Times for the first time since ABC records are available (going back to 2000). Although these newspapers are not directly comparable, the change represents a reshuffling in the order of our monthly table.
The Sunday Express declined by 3% month on month and 17% year on year to 108,870.
The circulation of the Financial Times in January was 109,995, up 1% month on month and down 5% year on year. However 52% of the FT's ABC audited circulation is non-UK. In addition 28% of its circulation is from bulk copies (which are paid for but distributed free of charge to consumers in locations like airports and hotels).
Like-for-like, including only paid newsstand sales and subscriptions in the UK, the Sunday Express is still ahead on 108,772 to the FT's 21,720.
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