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Daily marks 200th anniversary by topping ABC circulation chart

A daily newspaper marking its 200th anniversary has topped the circulation charts for the first half of 2017.

Today’s six-monthly ABC figures revealed The Scotsman experienced a 4.5pc increase in circulation compared the first half of last year, and a 9.1pc rise compared with six months ago.

The statistics for January to June showed that no other regional newspapers saw increases, when compared with the corresponding period in 2016.

The Irish News, however, did experience a 1.1pc circulation increase compared to the second half of last year.

For the the Belfast-based daily, whcih also featured in the ABC’s Island of Ireland statistics last week, 99.9pc of its circulation was drawn from retail, single copy and subscription sales, compared to 75pc of The Scotsman’s.

News editor Noel Doran said: “Two ABC reports in the space of a week have now confirmed that our circulation performance, in terms of paid-for sales, ranks as the best in Ireland and the UK.

“We are hugely encouraged that, during a period when we have reported on major news developments in our area, our audience has been increasing both in print and digitally over the last year.”

The Colchester Daily Gazette and its South Essex Newsquest sister daily The Echo were the two highest-placed English titles on the list, with declines of -3.5pc and -5.6pc respectively.

Wolverhampton’s Express & Star has the highest circulation of any newspaper for which figures were reported, at 51,202.

According to the results, the Scotsman’s circulation currently stands at 21,214.Scotsman-200-e1480516913295

The paper marked its bicentenary in January, while the newspaper has also changed editors during the past six months – with Frank O’Donnell taking over from Ian Stewart in April.

The full list of regional dailies, in order of year-on-year percentage change, is as follows:

Title Total Y-o-y pc
The Scotsman 21,214 4.5
Irish News 35,463 -1.3
Colchester Daily Gazette 9,525 -3.5
Paisley Daily Express 4,720 -5.3
The Echo, Essex 17,932 -5.6
Derby Telegraph 18,891 -6
Belfast Telegraph 39,314 -6.2
South Wales Argus 10,578 -6.8
Nottingham Post 17,265 -7.2
Sheffield Star 15,858 -7.6
Oxford Mail 9,922 -7.9
Dorset Echo 10,055 -8.1
Worcester News 6,815 -8.2
Bournemouth Echo 12,795 -8.5
Aberdeen Press & Journal 49,475 -8.8
The Press, York 14,075 -8.8
The Bolton News 9,271 -8.9
The Herald 27,655 -9
News Letter 14,900 -9.1
The Argus Brighton 10,370 -9.2
Swindon Advertiser 9,104 -9.5
The Post 17,148 -9.6
The Courier, Dundee 37,142 -9.9
Northern Echo 22,622 -10.5
Bradford Telegraph & Argus 13,264 -10.5
South Wales Evening Post 20,166 -10.7
Southern Daily Echo 15,620 -10.8
Lancashire Telegraph 10,532 -10.8
Hull Daily Mail 25,437 -11.3
Newcastle Chronicle 24,835 -12.1
Aberdeen Evening Express 23,960 -12.7
East Anglian Daily Times 14,857 -12.7
The Sentinel, Stoke 25,181 -12.8
Glasgow Evening Times 22,397 -12.8
Leicester Mercury 25,535 -12.9
Yorkshire Post 23,055 -13
South Wales Echo 14,134 -13
Teesside Gazette 19,488 -13.4
Plymouth Herald 15,755 -13.4
Express & Star, Wolverhampton 51,202 -13.6
Shropshire Star 24,529 -13.8
The News, Portsmouth 17,940 -13.8
Oldham Evening Chronicle 6,408 -13.8
Liverpool Echo 41,196 -13.9
Eastern Daily Press 31,514 -13.9
Ipswich Star 9,513 -14.4
Birmingham Mail 18,029 -14.5
Dundee Evening Telegraph 13,977 -14.5
Lancashire Post 9,874 -15.1
Coventry Telegraph 13,874 -15.8
Yorkshire Evening Post 15,192 -16
Norwich Evening News 8,117 -16.1
Carlisle News and Star East 6,126 -16.2
The Mail, Barrow 7,026 -16.9
Manchester Evening News 41,995 -18.9
Carlisle News and Star West 2,256 -19.1
Cambridge News 12,012 N/A

20 comments

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  • August 24, 2017 at 1:35 pm
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    Looks like some of the coastal papers are washed up.
    The Argus Brighton showing a shocking 10,370, down 9.2 per cent,
    Bournemouth Echo measly 12,795, down 8.5 per cent and worst of all the Plymouth Herald plunging by a depressing 13.4 per cent to 15, 755.
    Still ye reap what ye sow and the seeds were planted many years ago for this decline.
    As the For the Scotsman JP paid too much for it and the debts eventually cost a lot of JP workers their jobs. So congratulations.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 2:33 pm
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    I am sure that the 12.7% and worse falls for Archant’s four dailies has absolutely nothing to do with rigidly templating stories into bland page designs after all the subs and half the photographers were let go over the past 12 months.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 2:39 pm
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    Excluding free copy giveaways The Scotsman sale is 15,870 which is -12.1% on the previous year.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 2:46 pm
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    Just when you think it can’t get any worse for the Norfolk titles the EDP shows up with another jaw dropping loss down to just over 31,000 copies and the NEveninv news at an incredible 8,100
    This on the back of the latest shareholders report which shows losses across al platforms.
    It makes you wonder just how bad things have to get before the EDP and EN go free or close altogether

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  • August 24, 2017 at 3:07 pm
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    Interesting the National appears to have dropped off the charts. Newsquest getting nervous about those still falling sales?

    The Scotsman figures are aful once you take out discounts and bulks. If the SOS is already on the endangered species list, then the Scotsman can’t be far behind.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 3:41 pm
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    One-time sub. JP unfortunately cottoned on to that years ago. It is the market leader in ruining once-superb local papers

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  • August 24, 2017 at 6:24 pm
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    Lapsely, The National has always been audited annually. I notice also that some titles have fallen off this list because they are being audited by a different body to ABC. Wales on Sunday being one.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 6:26 pm
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    #one-time sub: Actually Facebook proves that people are happy with badly written content with amateur pictures as long as the stuff is interesting. Sure, subs help with spelling but little else in editorial impact (yeah, anything beyond page 11 only got cursory attention and don’t tell me they ‘crafted’ those nib headlines!) but toggies are/were the bedrock of any decent newsroom. They were ambassadors, contact points and always delivered great pictures. If it was me, I’d have the same number of photographers as writers and if my budget ran out of money for subs, well I’d have lived with that.
    Actually the main point I’d say is that people bought papers as much for jobs, cars and property as they did editorial. So now those platforms have gone, so have the sales.

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  • August 24, 2017 at 9:33 pm
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    As has been pointed out (and is blindingly obvious to anyone with any industry knowledge) The Scotsman’s performance is, rather embarrassingly, all about more and more bulks and sample copies.

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  • August 25, 2017 at 8:56 am
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    Ouch. Just one regional daily paper now shifting over 50,000 copies a day. And for how much longer?

    This list doesn’t state what % of these copies are given away either.

    There is now a pretty negligible difference between the Express and Star and the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

    Coupled with the steeper decliner of the E and S over the Press and Journal I think if I were involved with the former I’d start getting rid of any “Britain’s biggest selling” branding before the next round of ABCs come out.

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  • August 25, 2017 at 10:03 am
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    Are there any figures for the Halifax Courier and Wakefield Express??

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  • August 25, 2017 at 10:23 am
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    And to add to Despairingly, (just above), are there also any figures for the South Shields Gazette, Sunderland Echo or Hartlepool Mail?
    I’m surprised Harry Blackwood hasn’t already been onto this like a rat up a drain pipe!
    He must be on holiday or maybe he’s mellowing…

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  • August 25, 2017 at 11:04 am
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    Despairingly/Argus. No, these JP papers were removed from the list due to embarrassing performances. Even JP knows double digit falls year-on-year is bad news. Interestingly, the Halifax Courier was switched to weekly when it was selling more than its big city JP neighbour, the Yorkshire Evening Post now down 16.1 pc at 15,100. That didn’t work as the weekly sale has slumped from 23,000 to below 10,000 (how low is anyone’s guess). And, don’t forget when these figures are published they are out of date and you can assume sales are continuing to fall and will be a few pc lower. JP comments on its recent results point to concentration on the i and big city papers with high digital stats where it still hopes money can be made on its websites. Nobody had shown interest in the smaller papers so they are likely to be run down until there is no more profit in them. Sad state of affairs due mainly to market circumstances rather than bad management which seems to get the blame.

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  • August 25, 2017 at 11:24 am
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    The performance of the local papers is really sad. The Halifax Courier in particular was a fantastic newspaper – full of quality features which the advertising teams used well. And then the newspaper became templated and the opportunity to sell these ad features disappeared as set sizes had to be sold. The effect of this? Small local advertisers who would readily pay £50 for a small ad could only take a bigger ad at twice the price. So a massive loss of engagement from small local businesses coupled with banal, pre-written “features” means a lot of revenue lost. This is only part of the picture, there are so many poor decisions being made at JP, but it does give an indication of how bad decisions can quickly escalate into really bad ones.

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  • August 25, 2017 at 5:30 pm
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    “The Post” long ago changed its name to the Bristol Post, and has not been a daily paper since discontinuing its Saturday edition in 2012.

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  • August 25, 2017 at 8:49 pm
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    ” …. any figures for the South Shields Gazette, Sunderland Echo or Hartlepool Mail … ”

    Strangely, no :)

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  • August 30, 2017 at 10:17 am
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    bagpuss. while I agree with your comments about pictures being important I think the decline of writing standards, especially on the weeklies, has added to the decline in sales. I could sent a long and depressing list of grammar, style structure and typo errors each week from my JP weekly, but what’s the point? No-one truly cares, just get the paper out. Sure, weeklies were never perfect, but they were a hell of a lot better than now. An intelligent readership notices things like that. Anything goes for Facebook fans.

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  • August 31, 2017 at 9:21 am
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    @norridge
    Agree
    You should try selling ads into them

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  • August 31, 2017 at 11:01 am
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    #Bagpuss; Let’s not play the management game by pitting one section of the workforce against another. You need snappers, and you need subs; the photos might be great but I’ve only ever worked with a handful of photographers who could write a caption that was both accurate and spelled correctly, and I can’t remember the last time one came back from a job with the upright and wide alternative shots that were requested. That being said, by far the best writer on my paper is primarily a photographer. His all too rare picture spreads leave the so-called reporters’ copy dead in the water.

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