November 2012 ABC Newspaper Circulation

You really wouldn’t have to be working on algorithms to predict what was going to happen this month. November normally brings with it a slight dip in newspaper purchases, but this year’s seems to have been fairly dramatic for some publications.

The Tabloids dropped over 4,000 copies collectively with the Mirror (-1,800) and the Daily Star (-1,433) sharing most of that drop. The latter has now, for the first time in its fairly illustrious history, dropped sub 70,000. Over the years many of the Star journeys brought them into unchartered waters, and to great success in many cases, this circulation figure however is into territories better left unexplored.

The Tabloids sector here is sinking fast, faster than the market as a whole. Some of them are formulating a Plan B (like the Mirror iPad strategy) and for others it looks as if there is no plan at all. The mornings lost 4,000 month on month alone and 15,000 year on year and the Sunday’s ditched 6,000 copies month on month.      

Only one newspaper managed to gain in circulation – and that was 18 copies from The Times, hardly reason for celebration.  

The Sunday Sun looks as if it’s showing its true colours dropping over 4,000 in the month. The Daily Star on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror also we back roughly 1,500 each. But take heed as the Sunday figures are very misleading due to the absence of the News of the World in the comparative figure for 2011.

The Market is down nearly 3,000 on the year and 14,000 on the month. All looks fairly “ok” given the state of the economy and the newspaper market as a whole. But take out the confusing News of the World figure so we can compare like with like and you see that the market is down a staggering 65,000 papers year on year. With “Ho Ho Ho” looming – it’s not going to get any better.