National newspaper ABCs: Sunday mid-market papers only sector to grow circulation in October

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The Sunday mid-market genre was the only national newspaper category to show overall circulation growth in October's figures from the UK Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

The statistics show that every other category recorded negative growth overall. The biggest individual month-on-month increases were recorded for the Mail on Sunday with a 3.41 per cent increase to 2,037,232 and the Financial Times with a rise of almost 3 per cent to 401,898. Only two other titles, the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, recorded positive growth.

Overall morning national title circulations declined by 1.73 per cent while Sunday papers recorded a decline of 1.69 per cent in October. The biggest individual decline month-on-month was recorded for the Daily Star at 8.19 per cent.

The biggest year-on-year decreases were recorded for quality titles across both morning and Sunday papers, of 11.19 and 11.59 per cent respectively.

Key figures

The first figure in each category below denotes average net circulation for October 2010. The figure in brackets is the month-on-month percentage change for the average net circulation between September and October and the third figure shows the year-on-year percentage change between October 2009 and October 2010.

Morning papers:

Popular: 5,233,484 (-2.65) -4.82

Mid Market: 2,772,023 (-1.14) -2.91

Quality: 2,090,567 (-0.17) -11.19

Total average: 10,096,074 (-1.73) -5.71

Sunday papers:

Popular: 5,186,597 (-3.37) -7.47

Mid Market: 2,909,029 (+1.95) -5.49

Quality: 2,128,472 (-2.33) -11.59

Total average: 10,224,098 (-1.69) -7.81

October National Newspaper ABCs