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Circulation falls across the board for UK regionals

Circulation falls almost across the board characterise the latest set of ABC figures for the regional press with only one daily title in the UK posting a sales increase.

Among the dailies, the Liverpool Echo fared better than most in the first half of the year, down just 3.2pc.

But by contrast its stablemate the Liverpool Daily Post was down 28pc to 8,389 – the biggest decline of any regional daily – following its repositioning as a business title.

The Dundee Evening Telegraph was the only regional daily to post an increase in sales, up 0.4pc to 23,269.

Editor Richard Prest, who joined the paper in March, said the staff were delighted by the figures.

He said: “The success is down to a fantastic team effort involving editorial, circulation, advertising, production, promotions and our consumer insight department.

“Over the last few months we have tried to do the simple things really well – focusing on traditional hard news, fully exploiting the major stories that have broken on our patch, and increasing the sports coverage in the newspaper.”

Other titles which performed better than the average included the Telegraph’s sister paper the Aberdeen Press and Journal, which fell just 3.3pc, and the East Anglian Daily Times in Ipswich which was down 3.7pc.

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    Elsewhere there were decreases of more than 10pc for the Cambridge Evening News, down 11.9pc to 21,997, and the Western Daily Press in Bristol, in its new guise as a news aggregator, which fell 11.8pc to 31,809.

    Double digit falls also hit the Nottingham Evening Post, Oldham Chronicle, The Press in York, Glasgow Evening Times, Western Mail, South Wales Echo, and both The Journal and Evening Chronicle, Newcastle.

    Alastair Machray, editor of the Liverpool Echo, said: “The Echo – both online and in print – continues to deliver the best in news, sport and feature content, in an environment where consumers’ habits are ever-changing.

    “Moving to the two-edition structure has ensured that we can reach our readers at a time of day that suits them, with an improved product both in terms of print quality and editorial content. Remarkably some weeks in this period have seen year-on-year increases.

    Liverpool Daily Post editor Mark Thomas added: “These ABC figures must be examined within the context of the Liverpool Daily Post’s repositioning as a business title.

    “This has long been the LDP’s core strength and our business coverage is unmatched either in volume or in quality and it will continue to be a cornerstone of our ambitions going forward.”

    Comments

    Subbo (26/08/2010 11:56:02)
    I like the way the Liverpool Daily Post seems to be ‘repositioning’ itself to extinction. Brilliant explanation.

    Appealing (31/08/2010 13:40:29)
    Wow – incredible on the Liverpool Post – what a decision: Losing sale – let’s make our appeal more niche!