Few winners in newspaper ABCs

The decline in national newspaper sales accelerated in March, although there were some clear winners bucking the trend, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

The figures show a 4.2% year-on-year decline in newspaper sales compared with a 3% decrease for the whole of last year. The total quality dailies category saw growth of 0.3%, with the mid-market and popular press both experiencing further decline.

The Guardian saw more than 7% growth year-on-year, and the Financial Times saw nearly 2% growth over the same period. The Times suffered a 0.54% year-on-year drop although sales grew 1.13% over the six months to March 2006 compared to the same period in 2005.

The daily red-tops saw a 5% year-on-year decline with the pattern repeated in the Sunday market, where the News Of the World was down by 6.4% year-on-year. The Sunday Mirror was down 4.1%, its sister title The People was down 10.92%, and Express Newspaper’s Daily Star Sunday was down 17.9% year-on-year.

The Observer and the Independent performed extremely strongly with 7.72% and 15.52% increases respectively, while The Mail on Sunday’s launch of You magazine as a stand-alone publication helped slow the title’s decline from 4.41% year-on-year in February to 1.54% year-on-year in March.