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Newspaper circulation figures continued to fall across the board in March with the exception of the Evening Standard where distribution stayed steady on last year.
The latest ABC figures show Reach-owned titles the Sunday People, Star on Sunday and Daily Star continued to record the biggest year-on-year declines.
Free title the Metro posted the smallest year-on-year drop of 3 per cent, followed by the Sunday Times which had a 4 per cent drop in circulation.
National newsbrand circulations for March (source ABC):
| Publication | Total circulation March 2019 | Year-on-year % change | Bulks |
| Metro FREE | 1,427,127 | -3% | |
| The Sun | 1,358,945 | -8% | 104,378 |
| Daily Mail | 1,186,689 | -9% | |
| The Sun on Sunday | 1,136,412 | -7% | 103,780 |
| The Mail on Sunday | 1,006,177 | -6% | |
| London Evening Standard | 874,314 | 0% | |
| The Sunday Times | 711,872 | -4% | 77,275 |
| Daily Mirror | 497,699 | -12% | |
| Sunday Mirror | 407,690 | -14% | |
| The Times | 405,013 | -7% | 76,773 |
| The Daily Telegraph | 342,596 | -10% | |
| Daily Star | 326,360 | -17% | |
| Daily Express | 314,516 | -12% | |
| Sunday Express | 271,117 | -12% | |
| The Sunday Telegraph | 268,238 | -9% | |
| i | 231,256 | -9% | 50,466 |
| Daily Star – Sunday | 194,007 | -18% | |
| Financial Times | 174,224 | -6% | 30,650 |
| The Observer | 163,814 | -7% | |
| Sunday People | 153,073 | -18% | |
| The Guardian | 134,443 | -9% | |
| Sunday Mail | 119,255 | -13% | |
| Daily Record | 117,416 | -11% | |
| Sunday Post | 103,383 | -14% | 538 |
| City AM FREE | 86,073 | -5% |
Picture: Reuters/Peter Nicholls
Markets Editor, Business Insider
Senior Business Reporter, The Sunday Times
Lecturer in Journalism, University of Gloucestershire
There are many, many reasons for the demise of newspapers at local, regional and national level. We don’t have room to go into it in depth, but I will offer a brief thought as a journalist/editor/publisher of 40+ years standing. As a regional industry we were led for too long by Advertising/Commercial profiteers who took their readers and creative talent (yes, journalists) for granted, and they in turn were supplanted by digital pretenders (JP/AH) who tried their laughable (largely ongoing) snake-oil potions, before latterly craving to suck from the funded tit of Google/Facebook and hoping for a retro comeback like vinyl records. Sadly, they’ve burned the originals. As for the Nationals? Still some talent guys, but you are not believed any longer. The MSM’s agenda-driven editorial myopia has been exposed by a wiser – or more cynical – public. You’re mostly nothing but the discredited BBC, in print. Signed, Danny Lockwood, independent publisher of 17 years standing, still managing to get along, thank you very much!
I should add Ed, a “failure of marketing”.
What?
You think the collapse of newspapers is because they don’t market well enough?
Are you for real?
If you genuinely think that you are utterly deluded. They’re failing because they suck. They coasted for decades on a monopoly access to information. They’re failing because they are comparatively useless now compared to the internet, because they lie endlessly, and because they are frequently mediocre talentless hacks that can’t hold a candle to the talent of hordes of amateur internet bloggers who write for nothing more than the love of it.