Circulation at the UK’s regional daily newspapers was down by an average of 17% year-on-year in the first half of 2024.
This was a slower rate of decline than in the same period a year ago, when the regional dailies audited by ABC were down by an average 20%. And it is slightly higher than in the first half of 2022 (the same period two years ago), when we calculated a 16% fall across the daily market.
Excluding digital editions, the average print circulation decline in the first half of this year was 16%.
Digital editions were steady, going from an average of 11,699 (all paid subscriptions) across ten newspapers in the first half of 2023, to 11,659 this year.
These figures compare with an average monthly audience growth of 33% year-on-year among the top 78 regional news websites in the UK in July, according to Ipsos iris data, as well as a 12% growth in monthly audience minutes.
[Update: UK local news websites see audience bounceback in July 2024]
The newspapers at the top of the table all stayed in the same order. The Belfast-based Irish News remained on top with an average daily circulation of 22,782, down 9% compared to H1 2023, after overtaking the Aberdeen Press & Journal in 2023.
All of the 53 regional daily newspapers included in ABC‘s report reported year-on-year decline. But The Irish News was one of just three to report a single-digit drop. The Southampton Southern Daily Echo (5,767) and Dorset Echo (4,045) were also down by 9%.
The Press & Journal in second place reported an average circulation of 21,765 after a 12% year-on-year drop.
The highest newspaper in the table to drop places was the Manchester Evening News, down from 12th place in H1 2023 to 14th place with a circulation of 6,519. The MEN stopped distributing free copies in 2022 so these were not included in last year or this year’s numbers.
The Yorkshire Post fell below a circulation of 10,000 for the first time, to 9,461 (down 11%).
Only one newspaper saw a decline of more than 30% in the period: the smallest title in the list, the Paisley Daily Express in Scotland, was down 35% to an average 1,233 copies per day.
A further 14 of the daily newspapers saw circulation decline of at least a fifth. The second-highest was the Hull Daily Mail, with a drop of 28% to 4,904.
Thirty, or 57%, of the 53 newspapers included in ABC’s regional daily report for the first half of the year had a circulation below 5,000.
Not all regional daily newspapers are included in the ABC figures, for example the Belfast Telegraph is omitted.
In print, newsstand sales among the dailies audited by ABC were down by 16% while paid subscriptions were down by 13%.
This is how the digital circulations (all paid subscriptions) stack up for the ten daily newspapers that also report them to ABC:
Several Scottish daily newspapers report their circulations each month: see their latest numbers here.
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