Manchester Evening News editor Paul Horrocks has spoken out, saying ABC figures "are only part of the story" after the latest results showed his newspaper had seen a 28.5 per cent drop in circulation in the past year.

The ABC figures for July to December 2006, released on Thursday, showed the MEN's Monday to Friday sale had been hit, falling from an average 133,801 copies sold at the end of December 2005 to 95,727 last December.

Its Monday to Saturday sales figure fell 26.8 per cent, from 128,445 to 94,018.

But Paul said this should be put into context.

He told HoldtheFrontPage: "When you look at the headline figure it is a big drop, but it is one that is in line with our expections.

"It really is only part of the picture. Of course circulation is going to decline - we now distribute free more than 70,000 copies a night in the city centre.

"The MEN is part paid-for, part free and has a reach of 428,000, an increase in readership of 19 per cent.

"When you put the paid circulation alongside the free distribution it is 176,000-plus copies a night."

Paul said the paper was now pursuing a combined method of recording paid-for and free figures with its online audience - of 840,000 unique users a month - and supported the work being done by the Newspaper Society.

Two free editions of the MEN are now distributed in the city centre each day, alongside three paid-for editions to outer areas.

Paul said this had also resulted in an eight per cent increase in display ad revenue and the MEN was now hitting more 15 to 44-year-olds and was getting a greater share of the ABC1 market.

He said: "It is a false picture to simply show paid-for circulation, we are now working to a different model.

"Both the paid and the free are exactly the same product.

"I've never said that it would work for everybody, but we have a large city centre with thousands of people passing through.

"We now circulate more than 170,000 copies per night, which makes us the biggest regional newspaper in the country."