Sunday red-tops buck trend

Sunday popular newspapers posted the biggest growth during August in spite of an overall drop within the sector. In other results, The Sun remained the strong market leader showing continued growth according the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

News International’s News of the World rose 2.07% month on month, though fell 3.18% to 3.19 million year on year. The People rose 1.54% month on month; the Sunday Mail rose 2.78%; while the Daily Star Sunday also rose 3.82%. However, all three titles suffered year on year declines.

News International’s The Sun rose 1.48% in the six months to August to 3.1 million, while also rising 0.48% month on month.

Among the other national morning popular titles, the Daily Mirror, Daily Record and Daily Star all recorded marginal month on month increases, despite all falling year on year.

Among the morning quality papers, the Financial Times posted a much smaller fall of 1.42% in August compared to the previous month. Both The Times and The Daily Telegraph remained steady month on month, but fell by 2.95% to 617,038 and by 3.07% to 865,620 year on year respectively.

The Independent and Independent on Sunday both suffered falls month on month and year on year, with the latter falling the hardest by 7.54% to 209,146 in the six months to August.

Guardian News & Media’s The Guardian newspaper fell 1.58% month on month and 4.74% to 347,047 year on year. Its sister publication The Observer similarly fell 4% month on month and 2.34% to 440,697 year on year.

The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday both experienced big month on month increases, up 6.88% and 12.06% respectively.