February 2013 ABC’s

This month see a dose of reality in the figures, if not a slightly inflated dose. For the past few months there has been an absence of a comparison for the Sun on Sunday – which had the effect of distorting the market by somewhat overinflating it. However it was February 2012 that the Sun on Sunday first revealed itself with a none too flattering debut of 109,000. It means that February ’13 is the first month where we can compare the Sun to a figure for the previous year.  

It reveals that the paper has lost over 50,000 sales year on year. Granted the comparison is to the first edition figure which will normally have a large subscription.   

Again this month the tabloids in the morning take some punishment dropping 4,000 collectively over the month and 18,000 over the year. The Sun lost nearly 2,000 and is easing itself closer to dropping below the 60 mark (and I suggest the Daily Star might follow it shortly after).

The Sunday Market was up marginally, the Mail on Sunday adding 1,600 and the Sunday Mirror down nearly 2,000, which was a larger than normal drop for that title.

Over the twelve months, close to 100,000 people have deserted the Sunday market, in one form or another. The two ways of doing that: quitting the market altogether or cutting back, once buying two papers now only one. That underlying disaster has always been there but it was masked by having the Sun (Sunday) figure and no figure to compare it against, thus distorting and inflating the real numbers.

However, spare a though for the Sun (Sunday) across the water. Launching at a figure of 3.213m it is now down to 1.912 a 40% decline year on year.