December is always a bad month for sales and this year is no different. The tabloids took a beating last month dropping 10,000 over the month. The big faller was The Mirror leaving 5,600 behind on November. The Sun fell into the 50’s pit for the first time and The Daily Star hung on by a very narrow 400 copies. With the inclement weather we had last month, I can’t expect that these figures will rebound as much as they have historically in January.

In the Sunday market the Sun lost over 3000 on the month with the rest of the tabloids holding onto what they had in November. The Sunday Times slipped again, this time by over 2,000 and leaves it on 92,000. 

The “Annus horribilis” award goes jointly to the same stable: Sunday People -16% Daily Mirror -15% Sunday Mirror –14% all compared to December 2012. 

If we were commenting on a fast passed industry, I’d be analysing the final six month ABC figures for the market as a whole. But we’re dealing with some sections of the print media still clinging to the ideals of the Gutenberg press, so it will be next month before we have all the data necessary to complete the Irish Newspaper picture for 2013.