Before we’re all lulled into a false sense of hope, it should be pointed out that historically there is always an uplift in January sales in comparison to December. So, true to form, the market is up over 33,000 month on month.
The only sales (due to this natural uplift) worth pointing out would be the Mail on Sunday which gained over 8,000 copies and the Sunday Times who managed to put on over 9,000 copies. The last time the Sunday Times had a sale of that magnitude was back in January 2010, so that’s a very encouraging start to the year.
Year on Year the numbers are unimpressive. The Sunday market, paper on paper, looks positive. The combined net gains of the Sunday papers is close to 36,000 copies. But in January 2010 the NoW was selling 122,000, so we can say that about 86,000 of the NoW old purchasers have deserted the market completely.
The Irish Daily Star sales year on year are down nearly 14,000 copies which is by far the worst performing of all the papers. Coupled with trying to fight the tabloid wars on the home front, it is now also having to fight a circulation war in house. The ‘Blue top edition’ of the Daily Star (aka the UK version) is now selling 1,100 per morning in the republic which has to be hurting the ‘Irish’ edition. At the till those “UK” sales are worth nearly half a million which has to be coming form somewhere.
The Sunday Mirror is still seeing a lift after the NoW closure, but maybe losing some of that momentum. Likewise the Sunday People is up nearly 6,000 year on Year.
The Sunday Times is 7,000 ahead of is January 2010 which has little to do with the NoW closure is could be argued.
| Title | Jan-12 | Dec-11 | Jan-11 | M on M | Y on Y |
| Daily Mirror | 59,470 | 56,360 | 63,851 | 3,110 | -4,381 |
| Daily Record | 551 | 531 | 687 | 20 | -136 |
| Irish Daily Star | 76,560 | 75,331 | 90,331 | 1,229 | -13,771 |
| The Sun | 73,283 | 70,597 | 82,555 | 2,686 | -9,272 |
| Daily Express | 2,831 | 3,037 | 2,818 | -206 | 13 |
| Irish Daily Mail | 49,274 | 48,569 | 54,845 | 705 | -5,571 |
| The Daily Telegraph | 2,932 | 2,969 | 2,961 | -37 | -29 |
| Financial Times | 3,231 | 3,520 | 3,628 | -289 | -397 |
| The Guardian | 3,562 | 3,580 | 3,933 | -18 | -371 |
| i | 479 | 468 | |||
| The Independent | 838 | 858 | 948 | -20 | -110 |
| The Times | 2,108 | 2,187 | 2,221 | -79 | -113 |
| Morning Market | 275,119 | 268,007 | 308,778 | 7,112 | -33,659 |
| Daily Star – Sunday | 35,353 | 35,500 | 35,740 | -147 | -387 |
| News of the World | 122,127 | 0 | |||
| Sunday Mail | 1,162 | 1,206 | 1,413 | -44 | -251 |
| Sunday Mirror | 61,365 | 58,939 | 39,714 | 2,426 | 21,651 |
| The People | 26,104 | 25,896 | 20,324 | 208 | 5,780 |
| Sunday Express | 3,842 | 3,891 | 3,688 | -49 | 154 |
| Sunday Post | 823 | 716 | 747 | 107 | 76 |
| The Mail on Sunday | 115,186 | 106,731 | 113,271 | 8,455 | 1,915 |
| Independent on Sunday | 1,298 | 1,426 | 1,156 | -128 | 142 |
| The Observer | 7,034 | 6,770 | 7,559 | 264 | -525 |
| The Sunday Telegraph | 2,778 | 2,474 | 2,692 | 304 | 86 |
| The Sunday Times | 114,614 | 105,101 | 107,513 | 9,513 | 7,101 |
| Sunday Market | 369,559 | 348,650 | 455,944 | 20,909 | -86,385 |
| Racing Post | 5,411 | 6,169 | 5,729 | -758 | -318 |
| Total Market | 650,089 | 616,657 | 770,451 | 33,432 | -120,362 |
