Have boobs bust The Sun?

The Sun’s circulation hit a historic low in December. Although it remains strong against its rivals, there’s no room for complacency.

One vital statistic The Sun is probably not so proud to display on Page 3 is its recent ABC circulation figure. In December, circulation hit a 30-year low. However, News International may take some consolation that, back in 1974, The Mirror was selling 500,000-odd copies more than The Sun. These days, The Sun outsells its deadly rival by about 1.4 million copies.

The Sun’s front-page headline last Wednesday was “Ship Ship Hooray” – the suicide of serial killer Harold Shipman covered with all the sensitivity of Robert Kilroy-Silk. Similar treatment of Frank Bruno’s psychiatric problems last year seemed to be ill-judged and led to a public outcry, although the paper later launched a campaign to raise money for mental health charity Sane. Could it be that The Sun is falling out of step with the mood of the nation, or is its decline part of a wider malaise affecting the newspaper industry?

There have been recent changes of course. Rebekah Wade took over as editor a year ago and Belinda Furneaux-Harris was appointed to the (for a while) vacant position of marketing director in September.

Wade’s arrival was big news at the time: would she or wouldn’t she pull Page 3, what does she think of Tony Blair, and will she take on Piers Morgan in the broadcast media spotlight? A year on and Page 3 is bigger than ever, Blair has had a pretty rough ride and Piers Morgan still rules the airwaves, but hasn’t had it all his own way.

Perhaps more significantly, 30 years ago daily newspapers sold on average nearly 15 million copies a day between them, whereas today (including bulks, lesser-rate sales and any other incentives to encourage readership) they can’t manage 12 million. So you could say The Sun has fared better than most.

Price wars have raged across the red-top market in recent times, although there has been a recent cessation of hostilities. For this reason, one has to go back to April 2002 (when lesser-rate sales totalled 103,608) to find a meaningful benchmark for The Sun’s circulation. In that month total, circulation was reported as just over 3.3 million, whereas in October 2003, after the major price battles had ceased, circulation was just shy of 3.4 million (with lesser-rate sales at 196,731). Since the October ceasefire, circulation has slid to its new, 30-year low of 3,244,580. What does this tell us? Probably what Belinda Furneaux-Harris already knows: price wars are a short-term solution which have no proven effect in the long term.

In Rebekah Wade, The Sun seems to have a capable editor who, despite the odd misjudgement, certainly knows her readers. In the marketing arena, Furneaux-Harris is going to have to address the long-term issues – if the short-term pressures allow.

Richard Britton is managing director of Brand Connection