A cuts-threatened regional daily has been revealed to have the highest print circulation of any UK regional daily in the latest ABC figures.

Aberdeen’s Press & Journal recorded an average daily sale of 23,982 during the period July to December 2022, although its circulation declined by 13pc over the same period.

Publication of the figures comes after Press & Journal owner DC Thomson confirmed plans to cut 100 journalist jobs across its business, with Aberdeen editor-in-chief Frank O’Donnell among those placed at risk of redundancy.

The ABC figures have yet again shown an across-the-board decline in circulation for all registered regional dailies, with the 10pc drop at the Irish News the lowest when compared with the same period in 2021.

Some Reach plc sister titles saw their circulations decline by more than a quarter, including the Hull Daily Mail, down 28pc, and the Coventry Telegraph, Teesside Gazette and Plymouth Herald, all down 27pc.

The comparative figures, compiled by HTFP from raw data provided by ABC, include paid-for single print copies, paid-for multiple copies – known colloquially as ‘bulks’ – and paid-for subscriptions.

Free copies and digital copies are excluded from our analysis of the data as only a handful of titles recorded figures for these.

So for instance while the MEN’s overall circulation fell from 20,993 in the period July-December 2021 to 9,411 in the same period last year, the 2021 figure included around 9,000 free copies. Reach plc took the decision to end free copies of the MEN in August last year.

Several daily titles including the Blackpool Gazette, Newcastle Journal and Shields Gazette only publish figures covering a whole calendar year, and these are therefore included in a separate table, below.

The figures for July to December 2022 also feature a return for a number of Newsquest dailies that had not been registered with ABC for several years.

The full list of regional dailies in order of paid-for circulation decrease is as follows, while a separate list of dailies that report for the full calendar year is below.