Former Express online editorial director Tom Hunt is now editor-in-chief of the brand.

In recent months Gary Jones has left the Express after six years as editor-in-chief and subsequently Sunday Express editor David Wooding also departed.

Jones was the second editor-in-chief of a Reach national newspaper to leave their post this year after six years: Alison Phillips stepped down from the Mirror at the end of January and was succeeded by Caroline Waterston.

Also this year London free business newspaper City AM, which is expanding its remit nationally, has appointed its former editor Christian May to return to the role.

Press Gazette has put together a round-up of the UK’s national newspaper editors as they stand (in no particular order). We will keep this list updated.

UK national newspaper editors

The Times

Tony Gallagher was appointed editor of The Times on 28 September 2022 following the resignation of John Witherow the day before.

Gallagher was promoted from deputy editor, and had already been acting as caretaker editor for several months while Witherow was on medical leave.

Gallagher joined The Times in February 2020 from fellow News UK title The Sun where he was editor for five years. He has also previously edited The Daily Telegraph between 2009 and 2014.

The Sunday Times

Ben Taylor was named editor of The Sunday Times on 19 January 2023, stepping up from deputy editor after news Emma Tucker would be leaving to lead The Wall Street Journal from 1 February.

Taylor was previously executive editor of the Daily Mail, where he worked for 22 years, before joining The Sunday Times as deputy editor in 2020.

Daily Mail

Ted Verity has edited the Daily Mail since November 2021, having previously been at the helm of the Mail on Sunday since 2018 and deputy at the daily paper before that.

He is editor-in-chief of Mail Newspapers, meaning he has overall responsibility for the Mail brands in a seven-day operation.

Mail on Sunday

Following Verity’s promotion, David Dillon was appointed to be Mail on Sunday editor in December 2021. He was previously Verity’s deputy.

Dillon first joined the Mail on Sunday from the Daily Express in 2001, working as news editor for a number of years before being promoted to executive editor.

The Sun and The Sun on Sunday

Victoria Newton has been editor-in-chief of The Sun since February 2020. She had been editor at The Sun on Sunday since 2013 but took over from Gallagher when he left The Sun for The Times.

Newton has maintained responsibility for the Sunday title in her editor-in-chief role.

Daily Mirror

Caroline Waterston, previously editor-in-chief of Reach magazines and supplements, has edited the Daily Mirror since the start of February 2024 – initially on an interim basis before she was made permanent on 30 April.

Waterston first joined Reach (then Trinity Mirror) in the mid-1990s and her roles have included deputy news editor and features editor of The People, features editor of the Sunday Mirror, head of features and deputy editor on the Sunday titles, deputy editor-in-chief across the Express and Star titles after their acquisition by Reach, and editor-in-chief of the national magazines including OK! magazine.

Waterston took over from Alison Phillips, who had edited the Daily Mirror since March 2018 and was editor-in-chief of that title plus the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People from February 2020 with the move to a seven-day operation.

The Daily Telegraph

Chris Evans has been editor of The Telegraph since January 2014 after the sacking of Tony Gallagher. He has been with The Telegraph since 2007, with previous roles including news editor and head of news, after joining from the Daily Mail where he spent 11 years.

The Sunday Telegraph

Although Evans has ultimate editorial responsibility at The Telegraph, Allister Heath has edited The Sunday Telegraph since 2017, having previously been Telegraph deputy editor.

Daily Express and Sunday Express

Tom Hunt, formerly Express online editorial director, was named editor-in-chief of the brand on 20 September.

At the Daily Express he succeeded Gary Jones who stepped down after six years in the role, which he used to detoxify the brand. Sunday Express editor David Wooding departed his own role about two months later as the Express becomes a seven-day operation without a dedicated Sunday Express team.

Before that Hunt had been with the Express for more than eight years, including as video news editor, leading its first team dedicated to video, and head of news.

Hunt said: “There is a huge opportunity here which I’m excited to take further, both digitally and in print, particularly as we cover Labour’s first months in office and see out a Conservative leadership contest.”

The Guardian

Katharine Viner has been editor-in-chief at The Guardian since 2015, when she was voted by staff to take over from Alan Rusbridger. She was previously editor-in-chief at The Guardian’s US edition.

The Observer

Under Viner’s leadership, Paul Webster edits The Observer. Viner appointed him to the role in 2018, after 20 years as deputy at the Sunday paper.

i

Oly Duff has been editor-in-chief of the i since June 2013, when he became the UK’s youngest national newspaper editor aged 29 – a title he maintains today.

Financial Times

Roula Khalaf has edited The Financial Times since January 2020, when she succeeded Lionel Barber who spent 14 years as editor.

Khalaf had been Barber’s deputy since 2016 and her previous roles at the FT included foreign editor and Middle East editor. She first joined the business newspaper in 1995.

Daily Star

Jon Clark has been seven-day editor-in-chief at the Daily Star since March 2018 after the paper was bought by Reach (then Trinity Mirror). He was previously associate editor at the Daily Mirror from 2013.

Daily Star on Sunday

Under Clark’s leadership, Denis Mann edits the Daily Star on Sunday and is a deputy on the daily. He has similarly held the role since March 2018.

The Independent

Geordie Greig was appointed as editor-in-chief of the digital-only The Independent in January 2023, just over a year after being ousted from editing the Daily Mail. He has previously edited the Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and Tatler.

He took over at The Independent from David Marley, who had been acting editor since October 2020 when Christian Broughton was promoted to managing director.

Free newspaper editors

Metro

Deborah Arthurs is editor-in-chief of Metro in print and online, having taken the lead on a new combined operation in March 2023.

She had been editor of Metro.co.uk from 2014 and a “gentle refresh” of the brand aligning print and online marked the beginning of her tenure as overall editor.

Arthurs has taken over from Ted Young, who had been editing the print newspaper for eight years.

Evening Standard

Former GQ editor of 22 years Dylan Jones was appointed editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard following a brief period as editorial consultant.

Jones began in the role on Monday 5 June 2023, becoming the news outlet’s first permanent editor in more than 18 months.

Before him, Jack Lefley was acting editor from July 2022 and Charlotte Ross had previously been acting editor from October 2021.

The last full-time editors were Emily Sheffield, who left in October 2021 after 15 months, and former chancellor George Osborne, who was in post between May 2017 and July 2020.

City AM

Former City AM editor Christian May is returning to the free business title after almost four years away at the end of August 2024.

He succeeds Andy Silvester, May’s former deputy who took on the role himself, whose last day was Thursday 18 July.

May described his previous five-year stint as editor as “the happiest and most rewarding years of my life”, adding: “I couldn’t be more excited to rejoin the team at City AM as it gears up for an ambitious era of growth and innovation.”

The post Who are the UK’s national newspaper editors? appeared first on Press Gazette.

Reach-owned Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail was the only paid-for title to see any minor circulation growth in October, according to the latest public ABC figures.

The Sunday Mail’s average weekly circulation was up 0.5% month-on-month in October to 44,382.

However it still saw year-on-year decline of 16%, joining the rest of the Reach-owned national newspapers which all saw annual decline of 15-20%.

Of the rest of the publicly audited national newspapers, the Mail on Sunday saw the smallest month-on-month decline of -0.1% to 568,734 and the biggest was at Scottish title the Daily Record, down 1.6% to 46,128.

DMGT-owned newspapers Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the i all kept their annual print circulation declines in single digits in October, as did the Financial Times.

The Daily Mail, with an average daily print circulation of 667,662 in October, and the Mail on Sunday both saw year-on-year drops of 8%.

The i was down 4% to 123,155 while the Financial Times saw a drop of 3% to 108,964 (of which 29% were bulk copies distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels).

National newspaper circulations in October 2024 (ABC) with monthly and yearly changes – this page will be updated monthly:

Read more: Widening gulf between weekday and Saturday UK newspaper sales revealed

The column for bulks refers to copies which are circulated for free at venues such as airports and hotels.

The above figures do not include the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep their ABC circulations private since the start of 2020. The Guardian and Observer joined them in September 2021.

The last ABC figures we have for these titles are as follows:

• The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)
• The Sun on Sunday: 1,013,777 (March 2020)
• The Sunday Times: 647,622 (March 2020)
• The Times: 365,880 (March 2020)
• Daily Telegraph: 317,817 (December 2019)
• Sunday Telegraph: 248,288 (December 2019)
• The Observer: 136,656 (July 2021)
• The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)

If these titles have fallen in line with rest of the industry their current circulations as of February 2024 would be as follows:

• The Sun: 700,000
• The Sun on Sunday: 600,000
• The Sunday Times: 322,000
• The Times: 180,000
• Daily Telegraph: 190,000
• Sunday Telegraph: 125,000
• The Observer: 80,000
• The Guardian: 60,000

2022 in focus

These charts show UK national newspaper circulation over the 12 months to March 2023.

2000-present

We have also charted the longer-term change in ABC circulation over the past 20 years across the UK press.

These charts show the extent of the print decline from The Sun reaching 3.76m in 2000 and the Sun on Sunday's launch in February 2012 with a short-lived 3.21m before dropping to just above 2m.

Meanwhile, though the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail once were competitive in print reach at around 2.3m-2.4m in 2000, the Mail now has a circulation three times the size of its former rival.

The Sunday tabloids all saw a spike in 2011 after the closure of the News of the World but few retained the readers – the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror did best at doing so, but largely lost them when the Sun on Sunday launched.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the UK's most popular newspapers:

September 2024

The circulation of the Financial Times was up 5% between August and September, the latest ABC figures show.

The FT had a circulation of 109,966, marking a drop of 2% compared to September 2023 - the smallest annual decline among the publicly audited national newspapers.

However the FT has the largest proportion of bulks (copies given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) which were on 31,491 or 29% of its total circulation, and non-UK copies which made up 52% of its ABC total (57,358 copies).

The next smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 4% to 124,075 of which 3% were bulk copies.

The biggest annual decline was at Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 20% to an average of 50,394 weekly copies sold. The Daily Star Sunday (64,645) and Scottish title Sunday Mail (44,144) were both down 18%.

On a monthly basis, the FT was the only title to see growth although free papers Metro (951,154) and City AM (68,144) both stayed steady.

The biggest monthly drops were at the Daily Mirror (212,300), Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail, all down 4%.

August 2024

The Daily Star Sunday now has a smaller circulation than the free City AM for the first time since the business newspaper launched 19 years ago.

The average Daily Star Sunday weekly circulation fell by 2% month-on-month and 16% year-on-year in August to 66,994.

London-only title City AM stayed steady compared to July on 68,144 and grew by 5% compared to August last year, with an average of 68,144 on Mondays to Thursdays.

The majority of the paid-for newspapers in our monthly ABC circulation round-up saw a double-digit year-on-year drop in August, led by fellow Reach tabloid the Sunday People which was down 20% to 51,961.

The only paid-for newspaper not to fall on an annual basis was the Financial Times, which stayed steady on 104,826. Of these 31,324 are bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels).

Compared to July, the Daily Record was narrowly the only paid-for title not to see a drop, staying steady on 48,472.

The Evening Standard began its transition away from being a daily newspaper at the end of July when it dropped its Monday and Friday editions. Nonetheless it dropped its distribution by only 1%, albeit 10% year-on-year, to 273,631.

July 2024

The Sunday People suffered the biggest decline in print circulation among the UK's national newspapers in July.

The weekly Reach tabloid's ABC circulation was down by 20% year-on-year and 2% month-on-month to 52,350.

The only national newspaper to see year-on-year growth in July was the Financial Times, which was up 2% to 108,070 despite seeing the joint biggest month-on-month decline of 2%.

Compared to last July, the FT's newsstand sales were down but paid subscriptions, bulk copies (which are given away for free at locations like airports and hotels) and non-UK copies were up.

Among the rest, the smallest annual decline was at the i, which was down 3% to 127,526. The i also had the biggest month-on-month growth, of 2%.

July marked the Evening Standard's final month printing five days a week as it phases out its daily edition ahead of going weekly. It dropped its Monday and Friday editions at the end of the month.

Across the month the Standard had an average print distribution of 276,885 - up 1% month-on-month but down 9% year-on-year.

June 2024

The average daily print circulation of the i is now higher than the Daily Star's for the first time in its history.

The change comes two months after the i's circulation was also higher than the Sunday Express for the first time as the DMGT-owned title's print readership has stayed relatively steady for several months.

In June the i reported an ABC print circulation of 125,545 - narrowly edging above the Daily Star on 125,525.

The i, which launched in October 2010, saw growth compared to May of 1% and and annual decline of 14%.

Meanwhile the Daily Star reported a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year fall of 15%.

Pre-Covid, in the first half of March 2020, the Daily Star had an average circulation of 276,453 - at the time 28% higher than the i on 215,640.

The biggest circulation drops in June were at the Sunday People (20% down to 53,501), Daily Star Sunday (18% down to 68,003) and Sunday Mail (18% down to 46,794).

As well as the i, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation, up 2% month-on-month and steady year-on-year at 110,736. Although the FT's paid newsstand sales were up marginally (to 12,534) its subscription copies were down 1% (to 9,069).

Free London daily City AM upped its distribution year-on-year by 1% to 68,112 and stayed steady compared to May.

May 2024

The Evening Standard dropped its distribution by 12% in May compared to the previous year as it announced plans to end its daily publication and go weekly in print.

This was a 12% year-on-year drop for the second month running although its distribution stayed steady between April and May.

The Standard distributed an average of 275,683 copies per day in May, according to the latest ABC figures.

As recently as October 2022 the Standard was distributing more than 400,000 copies a day. It has been below 300,000 since October 2023.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic it was distributing around 800,000 copies per day.

Meanwhile, every paid-for national newspaper saw their print circulation decline in May - although it should be noted that the year-on-year comparison is affected by the boost several Sunday newspapers saw last year from the King's coronation.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People saw the biggest drop compared to May 2023, with its average circulation down by 24% to 54,150.

Also dropping by more than a fifth year-on-year were fellow Reach weeklies the Sunday Express (down 22% to 124,581) and Daily Star Sunday (down 21% to 69,200).

The only paid-for newspapers to fall by less than 10% year-on-year were the i (down 5% to 124,904) and Financial Times (down 1% to 108,824).

On a month-by-month basis, the Sunday Mail in Scotland was the only title to see growth compared to April, as its circulation was up 1% to 48,292.

The biggest month-on-month decline was of 4% at the Daily Mirror (to 225,983), Daily Record (to 49,673) and Sunday Post (to 34,581).

Free newspaper Metro kept its distribution steady both month-on-month and year-on-year while London free business newspaper City AM grew marginally year-on-year and stayed steady from April into May.

April 2024

The i's print circulation is now higher than the Sunday Express for the first time in its history, according to the latest ABC data.

In April the circulation of the i, which launched in 2010, stayed steady compared to the previous month and fell by 5% year-on-year to 126,266.

The Sunday Express fell by 2% month-on-month and 17% year-on-year to 125,990, resulting in it falling one place down our monthly table.

The biggest year-on-year print circulation decline was again at the Sunday People, down 21% to 55,526. The largest month-on-month drop was of 4% at the Daily Star Sunday, to 69,766.

The Financial Times was, as in March, the only paid-for newspaper not to see annual decline, staying steady compared to April last year. Its average circulation was 109,868 made up of 12,068 newsstand copies, 9,365 subscriptions, 31,155 bulk copies (distributed for free in locations like airports and hotels) and 57,280 copies in other countries.

Of the rest of the paid-for newspapers, the i was the only one to see single-digit decline. Its DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday each declined by 10% year-on-year to 699,240 and 586,187 respectively.

March 2024

The Mail on Sunday's average print circulation fell below 600,000 in March, according to ABC.

The Sunday newspaper's circulation fell by 1% compared to February and 10% versus March 2023, reaching 594,414.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation is now about half of where it was in October 2017 - six and a half years ago.

However, in that time there has been a notable shift in its circulation mix with subscriptions making up a greater slice of the pie: newsstand sales are down 5% to 524,545 but paid subscriptions are up 404% to 69,869.

Meanwhile in Scotland the Sunday Mail, owned by Reach, fell below a circulation of 50,000 - reaching 48,597 following a month-on-month decline of 3%. This is more than half of its pre-Covid circulation of 104,608.

Also in March, the Daily Star grew its average circulation by 3% month-on-month to 134,924 while the Daily Mirror (237,233) and Financial Times (109,181) were up 1%. Others were steady or down by up to 3%.

The ABC figures are average per issue, meaning they should not be skewed by the fact March was a longer month than February, with one extra weekend.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the Sunday People, down 21% to 57,163, followed by the Sunday Mail and Sunday Post (35,848) each down 17%. The only paid-for title not to see decline was the Financial Times, which stayed steady compared to March last year.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday's digital editions stayed steady month-on-month, with active views per issue of 88,176 and 89,639 respectively.

February 2024

The Financial Times saw the biggest month-on-month drop in print circulation among the publicly audited national newspapers in February.

The FT had an average circulation of 108,125 in February according to ABC, down 6% compared to January - although it lost just 0.4% compared to a year earlier.

Subscriptions (9,255) were down 12% month-on-month to 9,255 while newsstand sales (12,227) were down 7% to 12,227 and global circulation (55,781) was down 8% to 55,781. But bulks (free copies distributed at locations like airports and hotels) were steady on 30,862.

The FT also had a digital edition circulation of 16,403, up 5% month-on-month.

The Daily Mail digital edition had average actively-viewed copies of 88,346 in February, up 1% month-on-month and 3% year-on-year.

The Mail on Sunday’s digital edition was on 90,062, up 1% and 2% respectively.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are top of the table among the paid-for newspapers that have their ABC circulations published, with circulations of 705,311 and 600,311 respectively.

Their next rival in the public table, the Daily Mirror, is several hundred thousand behind on 234,492.

Reach tabloid the Sunday People again reported the biggest annual decline, down 22% to 57,670 - the only drop in this set of figures of more than a fifth. It was followed by sister title Daily Star Sunday, down 18% to 72,363.

Free London title City AM was the only newspaper to grow its distribution year-on-year in February, upping its print run by 1% to 68,009. Month-on-month it was up by the same percentage and was joined by fellow free title the Evening Standard, which had a circulation of 277,238. The Standard, however, was down 11% compared to the year before.

January 2024

The Sunday People was the only national newspaper to see a print circulation decline of more than a fifth in January 2024.

The Reach tabloid had an average weekly circulation of 58,831 in January - down 22% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month.

Sister Reach titles the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star, Sunday Mail, Daily Record and Sunday Express all saw their circulations down by 15 to 17% year-on-year, as did DC Thomson's Sunday Post.

The only paid-for newspaper to stay steady year-on-year was the Financial Times, on 115,118. Its newsstand sales were down 14% but subscriptions were up 3%, bulk copies (those distributed in locations like hotels and airports) were up 1% and non-UK readership was up 4%.

The FT's actively purchased sales in the UK and Ireland averaged 24,000 with the rest of the circulation in Europe, Asia and the US.

The free Metro (953,856) and City AM (67,215) papers also kept their circulations about the same as in January 2023.

Month-on-month, the Daily Star Sunday saw the biggest decline of 8% to 73,103. The FT was up 1% as was free London paper the Evening Standard (277,238).

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail’s digital edition had an average circulation of 87,571 in January, up 1% month-on-month and 2% year-on-year. The Mail on Sunday's digital edition was up 2% month-on-month and 1% year-on-year to 89,326.

The FT published a digital edition figure of 15,594, down 6% year-on-year but up 12% month-on-month. This figure includes FT Premium and FT e-paper subscribers and customers through distributors Barnes and Noble, Media Carrier and Gold Key Media.

December 2023

December was a reasonable month for print circulation among the UK's national newspapers, with some experiencing monthly growth.

Scottish weekly the Sunday Mail saw the biggest growth compared to November, up 5% to 52,842, followed by the Financial Times (up 4% to 114,338), Daily Star Sunday (up 3% to 79,218) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 733,577).

The Sunday Post and Daily Express also grew by up to 1% while the Daily Mirror and the i fell by less than 1%.

Decline continued across the board when compared to December 2022, however, but it was lower than usual at some titles.

Often several newspapers see their circulation fall by about a fifth year-on-year but in December the only newspaper down that much was the Sunday People (a fall of 19% to 60,470).

Behind that, the Daily Star (136,909) and Daily Record (54,379) were both down by 14%.

The smallest annual circulation decline was at the i, down 7% to 128,110.

The Telegraph, which no longer publishes its total circulation (see below), has revealed it had an average weekly subscription number of 1,035,710 in December, made up of 117,586 in print, 688,012 in digital, and 230,112 across Telegraph Wine Cellar, Telegraph Puzzles and Chelsea Magazine Company.

The Mail titles also report their digital edition readership numbers: the Daily Mail's digital edition had an average circulation of 86,744 in December (up 2% month-on-month and 5% year-on-year) while the Mail on Sunday was on 87,910 (up 1% and 3% respectively).

November 2023

The i was the only UK national newspaper to avoid month-on-month print circulation decline in November.

The DMGT-owned newspaper stayed steady, growing 0.1% compared to October to an average circulation of 128,566.

The i also saw the second-smallest year-on-year drop of 7.4%, behind only the Financial Times which fell by just 0.3% to 110,220.

[Read more: As digital subs overtake print at i, editor Oliver Duff explains why future is bright for title]

The FT's newsstand sales (12,822) and paid subscriptions (9,373) were both down but the newspaper increased its bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels (32,001) and global distribution (56,024).

Free London newspaper City AM also stayed steady both month-on-month and year-on-year, with an average distribution of 67,940.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Sunday Post (down 2.7% to 38,160), the Sunday Mirror (down 1.9% to 182,978), the Sunday Mail (down 1.9% to 52,104) and the FT (down 1.7%).

The biggest annual drops were at the Sunday People (down 20.3% to 61,570), the Sunday Post (down 18.1%) and Daily Star Sunday (down 17.4% to 76,868).

October 2023

The Financial Times saw the smallest change in its print circulation in October, according to the latest monthly analysis of UK national newspapers.

The business newspaper grew by 0.4% month-on-month and declined by 0.3% in October to an average daily circulation of 112,139.

This included a slight increase (2% month-on-month and 6% year-on-year) in bulk copies distributed for free at locations like airports and hotels. These made up 29% of the FT's circulation in October.

The i, where bulks make up 1% of its circulation, had the next smallest annual decline in October of 8% to 128,494.

No other paid-for UK national newspapers that continue to publicly report their circulation figures still distribute bulk newspapers.

The biggest year-on-year circulation declines among paid-for titles were at Reach tabloids with a 22% drop at the Sunday People to 62,143 and a 19% fall at the Daily Star Sunday to 78,051.

Free title the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop overall, with its distribution down 27% compared to October 2022 to 293,663. This is the first time its distribution has gone below 300,000 since October 2009 when it became a free newspaper.

September 2023

Many UK national newspapers reported steeper-than-usual annual print circulation declines in September due to comparisons with the previous year when the death of The Queen appeared to lead to an uptick in sales.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday both saw their circulation fall by 17% year-on-year in September - up from an average decline of mostly somewhere between 10% and 13% each month in the year so far.

The biggest year-on-year decline among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People (down 24% to 62,712) followed by sister Reach title Daily Star Sunday (down 22% to 79,198).

Meanwhile the i, also owned by Mail publisher DMG Media, saw its average circulation fall below 130,000 in September to 129,133. Its earliest available ABC figures for January 2011, three months after its launch, show it was then on 133,472.

The Financial Times was the only newspaper to avoid a month-on-month circulation decline, growing by 7% to 111,738. It also reported the smallest drop compared to September last year, down 2%.

August 2023

Annual declines in print national newspaper circulations across the board continued in August.

The biggest year-on-year drops were at the Daily Star Sunday (down 22.4% to 80,124) and the Sunday People (down 21.8% to 64,605).

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, down 1% to 104,423 – of which 30,616 were bulk copies given away at locations like airports and hotels.

London business newspaper City AM did increase its free distribution by three-quarters compared to last summer, with an average of 64,729 copies distributed each Monday to Thursday in its first month of ownership by online retailer THG. It fell by 4% month-on-month.

The Daily Record was marginally the only paid-for title not to see a month-on-month drop in circulation. All others fell by up to 2% compared to July.

July 2023

Every national newspaper saw a year-on-year print circulation decline in July, according to the latest ABC figures.

The smallest annual decline was at the Financial Times, which fell by 1% to 106,038. The biggest drop was at the Sunday People, with the Reach tabloid falling by 22% to 65,460, followed by sister title the Daily Star Sunday down 20% to 80,847.

Free London newspaper the Evening Standard saw the biggest drop to its distribution overall, down 24% to 302,602. Fellow free London title, City AM, did see growth, increasing its distribution by 81%, compared to a dip last summer, to 67,600.

The FT did, however, have the biggest month-on-month decline of 4%. Three titles grew their circulations by a fraction of a percent compared to June: the Mail on Sunday, the i and City AM.

June 2023

The Sunday Mirror's print newspaper circulation fell below 200,000 for the first time in June.

In January 2000, the earliest data available on the ABC website, the Sunday Mirror had a print circulation of two million. By January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began, the paper was on 367,244.

Also in June, the Sunday People, sister title to the Sunday Mirror, saw its sales move below the free distribution of London business newspaper City AM.

City AM fell by 15% year-on-year to 67,602, staying steady month-on-month compared to May, while the Sunday People fell by 21% and 6% respectively to 66,950.

The smallest year-on-year declines were at the i and the Financial Times, which both saw their circulations fall by 5% to 130,945 and 111,014 respectively.

The biggest declines were of the Evening Standard's free distribution (down 29% year-on-year to 308,874) and the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, the FT's circulation was up 1% compared to May while Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady. The biggest drops were at the Sunday Express and Mail on Sunday, both down 9% to 145,543 and 637,437 respectively.

May 2023

The Sunday Express rose above the Daily Star's print circulation in May as several Sunday newspapers saw a month-on-month boost, likely as a result of souvenir coverage of King Charles III's coronation.

Charles and Camilla officially became King and Queen on Saturday 6 May, with many Sunday titles producing souvenir editions with extra pages and wraparound front covers on the following day.

The Queen's death and funeral in September similarly led to a boost in audience both in print and online.

In May, the Mail on Sunday grew by 7% month-on-month, the Sunday Express was up 6%, the Sunday Mirror by 3%, the Sunday People by 2%, and the Daily Star Sunday by 1%. All continued to fall on a year-on-year basis, however, although by a lower percentage rate than the monthly reports frequently show.

At the Mail on Sunday, paid single copies grew by 7% to 622,360 and subscriptions rose by 8% to 75,585. However at the Sunday Express the boost primarily came from newsstand sales, which were up by 6% to 150,909, whereas subscriptions, on which the title relies less, were up by only 1% to 9,182.

The boost at the Sunday Express took it above the Daily Star's circulation for the first time since January 2021 and May 2020, both anomalous months. Before May 2020, the daily title had been higher in our ranking since December 2011.

April 2023

Print circulation decline continued across the board at the UK's national newspapers in April.

The biggest drop among paid-for nationals was at the Sunday People, down 22% to 69,990. London's free Evening Standard, however, saw a greater fall of 31% to 311,216.

The smallest decline was at the FT, which dropped 2% year-on-year to an average monthly circulation of 109,637. It is the only ABC-audited newspaper to distribute a significant number of bulk free copies at locations such as airports and hotels as part of its circulation, but these fell by 9% so the smaller decline cannot be attributed to that portion of its circulation.

The only newspapers to grow by 1% between March and April were the Daily Mirror and the free City AM. The biggest month-on-month drop was of 3% at the Sunday People.

March 2023

The i reported the smallest annual print circulation decline among the UK’s national newspapers in March, according to the latest ABC figures.

The i’s circulation was down 7% in March compared to a year before, reaching 131,825. It was the only annual decrease under 10%.

The biggest decline was at the Evening Standard, where its free distribution was down by 31% year-on-year to 310,236.

The biggest paid-for drop was at the Sunday People, down by 21% to 72,091 – the only newspaper with an annual decline of more than a fifth in March.

Every newspaper publicly audited by ABC saw their circulation between February and March change by a narrow margin of between -2% (Daily Star Sunday, Sunday People, Sunday Post) and 1% (Financial Times, Daily Star).

The highest circulation paid-for print newspaper remains the Daily Mail, on 777,586 (down 11% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month). Metro, distributed for free in 50 UK cities, was on 952,424 (down 11% and 0.4% respectively).

February 2023

The Evening Standard has dropped its distribution by almost a third in a year.

The newspaper reported an average distribution of 311,485 for February, meaning it is nearing its circulation from before it went free – its final ABC report as a paid-for newspaper was 256,229 in September 2009.

December was the only month since then that it has been lower, on 310,933, than February’s total. Pre-Covid in February 2020 it was distributing an average of 787,447 copies per day.

The biggest print circulation decline of the UK’s paid-for national newspapers in February was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, which fell by 23% to 73,875. Reach told staff in January the People would begin to share most content with the Sunday Mirror, which itself was down 18% to sales of 209,197.

Fellow Reach title the Daily Express was the only other title aside from the People to fall by more than a fifth, going down by 21% to 173,372.

The smallest annual declines were at the i, which was down 8% to 132,222, and the Financial Times, down 9% to 108,562.

However the FT reported the biggest month-on-month drop of 5%.

Metro and City AM both kept their free distributions steady compared to January, and while the Daily Star Sunday was the only paid-for newspaper to see no month-on-month decline the Daily Star and Sunday Mail each fell by less than 1%.

January 2023

The Daily Mail's print circulation fell below 800,000 for the first time in January, according to the latest ABC data.

The newspaper reported an average circulation of 797,704, a dip of 12% year-on-year or 2% month-on-month. The Sun, traditionally its rival for the top of the table, is among the newspapers that no longer make their print circulations public.

In March 2020, the last time it published its ABC total, The Sun was on a circulation of 1,210,915 versus 1,132,908 for the Mail. The Mail then overtook The Sun for the first time in 42 years in May that year with a circulation of 980,000 and continues to be the UK's best selling daily.

The only newspaper to report growth in January compared to the same month last year was the Financial Times, up by 1% to 114,685, although it also saw the biggest month-on-month decline of 11% due to a decrease in non-UK circulation, bulk copies distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, and newsstand sales.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at the free Evening Standard, which reduced its distribution by 30% to 314,285, followed by the paid-for Reach tabloid Sunday People, down 23% to 75,521.

The Daily Star Sunday, Daily Express, Sunday Post, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Mail and Sunday Express all saw their circulations decline year-on-year by 20%. However all except the Daily Star Sunday and Daily Express stayed steady or grew month-on-month. All are owned by Reach, except the Sunday Post which is owned by DC Thomson.

The biggest month-on-month growth was at City AM, which stopped putting out newspapers on Fridays in January due to low commuter numbers on that day. Editor Andy Silvester said at the time that distribution on Mondays to Thursdays had almost reached pre-pandemic levels.

December 2022

Free newspapers Evening Standard and City AM suffered the biggest drops in their print distribution in December compared to the previous year.

The titles appeared to be distributing fewer copies as publishers suffer rising paper and energy costs amid continued changes to working patterns that see fewer commuters on Mondays and Fridays in particular. Subsequent to these figures, in January City AM has dropped its Friday print edition - but its editor Andy Silvester said the paper was "thriving" on the other four days of the working week.

The Evening Standard's distribution in December was down by 30% year-on-year to 310,933 - its lowest since before it went free in October 2009.

Meanwhile City AM was down 25% to 58,664 and also saw the biggest month-on-month decline, down 14% from November.

Fellow free newspaper Metro also dropped its print distribution, but by a much lesser margin: in December it was down 6% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month to 965,960.

Among the paid-for newspapers whose circulations are published by ABC, several Sunday titles published by Reach all lost more than a fifth of their circulations year-on-year: the Sunday People was down 24% to 74,601, the Daily Star Sunday was down 23% to 88,434, the Sunday Mirror was down 21% to 208,794 and the Sunday Express was also down 21% to 153,377. DC Thomson's Sunday Post in Scotland was also down 22% to 44,038.

These five titles, plus the Sunday Mail in Scotland, also posted the largest paid-for circulation declines month-on-month ranging between 6% and 3% down from November.

The smallest annual decline was at the i (down 5% to 137,039) followed by the Financial Times (down 8% to 128,794).

Two newspapers posted month-on-month growth: the Financial Times (up 17%) and the Daily Mail (up 2% to 812,106 - stopping it from dropping below 800,000 for the first time).

November 2022

Print decline across the board continued among the UK's national newspapers in November.

The smallest drop was at the i, which saw its print circulation decline by 3% year-on-year to 138,782.

The biggest was at the free Evening Standard, which dropped its distribution by 27% to 319,485. Among paid newspapers, it was Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down to to 77,300 - a 23% drop compared to November 2021.

The only newspaper not to report decline month-on-month was the Sunday Post in Scotland, which grew by 88 copies, or 0.2%, on average.

The Daily Mail remains the biggest paid-for print newspaper of those that publicly release their ABC circulations, staying just above 800,000. The free title Metro had an average distribution of 977,077 in November.

October 2022

No UK national newspapers saw print circulation growth, whether year-on-year or month-on-month, in October.

The latest ABC figures show the smallest declines among paid-for newspapers were at the i (down 3% year-on-year to 140,196 – the only single-figure annual decline) and the Financial Times (down 1% month-on-month to 112,478).

Many national newspapers saw month-on-month growth in September, likely down to appetite for souvenir editions following the death of the Queen.

The biggest drops between September and October, possibly indicating the newspapers with the biggest boost from the national mourning period, were at the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Daily Express, which all fell by 8% month-on-month.

The biggest annual declines were at DC Thomson’s Sunday Post in Scotland and Reach tabloid the Sunday People, down 22% and 21% respectively.

The Daily Express, FT, Sunday Mail and Daily Star Sunday all saw year-on-year falls of 19%.

September 2022

A strong appetite for print newspapers and souvenir editions following the death of the Queen appears to have led to month-on-month circulation growth almost across the board at the UK's national newspapers.

But the uplift was not high enough for most to report annual growth.

Of the eight publicly audited paid-for titles that saw month-on-month growth - the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, i and Financial Times - there was an average uplift of 4%. This growth was the same when factoring in the free distributions of Metro and the Evening Standard.

Including every newspaper in our ABC table, excluding City AM which appears to be an anomaly with its free distribution boosted by 37% following a severe slump, there was average month-on-month change of 2%.

The biggest month-on-month change was at the Financial Times, up by 8% to 113,992, followed by the Mail on Sunday (749,960) and i (147,609) which both grew by 5%.

However, annual decline continued at every newspaper except the Financial Times and the i. Although both are the only newspapers that still put bulk copies into locations like airports and hotels, making up 27% of the FT's circulation and 4% at the i, more of their annual growth was down to newsstand sales than this strategy.

The i was in fact at its highest level since December 2020, when it had a circulation of 148,927.

The biggest annual declines were at the Sunday People (down 20% to 82,275) and Sunday Post (down 19% to 48,938).

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years.

August 2022

The Financial Times saw marginal year-on-year growth in circulation in August, with every other newspaper continuing to decline.

The FT had a circulation of 105,748 in August compared to 105,213 the year before. Its newsstand sales and non-UK circulation grew although paid subscriptions and bulks (copies distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) were down.

Month-on-month, the only newspapers to see growth were the Daily Star Sunday, up 2% to 103,200 and the Scottish title Daily Record which was up by 1% to 69,316. Both are owned by Reach.

The Evening Standard also upped its free distribution, although by less than 1%. Its print readership in July was its lowest since before it went free in October 2009, with August the second lowest. Its year-on-year decline of 19% was one of the biggest in our table.

Fellow London free title City AM is also at its lowest distribution (36,640) since its 2005 launch. Its print edition was paused for 18 months during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Reach-owned Sunday People's circulation was down the most, by 22% to 82,597, with DC Thomson's Sunday Post down by 20% to 48,943.

July 2022

Every publicly audited UK national newspaper recorded a year-on-year decline in circulation in July.

Even the Financial Times, which has seen year-on-year growth every month since July 2021, was down by a few hundred copies compared to the year before. This was the smallest annual decline among the audited newspapers.

The Metro distributed less than one million copies for the first time since May 2021, when it trumpeted making it back over that milestone following the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The biggest year-on-year decline was a drop of 22% at the Sunday People.

Month-on-month, however, there was growth of 2% at the i largely down to an increase in paid subscriptions.

The biggest decline from June to July was at City AM, where free distribution more than halved to 37,369.

June 2022

Every publicly ABC audited UK national newspaper saw circulation decline from May to June with the exception of the i which saw growth of 0.2%.

Compared to June 2021, the Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to report growth, of 8% to 116,498.

Since the Covid-19 lockdowns ended the FT's circulation increases have largely been put down to the return of the distribution of free bulk copies at locations like airports and hotels. But in June a 17% year-on-year increase in bulk copies to 35,094 was also accompanied by 9% growth in paid newsstand sales to 15,612 (alongside a 4% decline in subscriptions to 9,076).

The smallest (4%) annual decline was at the i, which had a circulation of 137,964 and is the only other paid-for newspaper to still be shored up with free bulk copies - although they only account for 4% of its current total.

The biggest month-on-month decline was at the Sunday Mail in Scotland (down 5% to 66,469) while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People (down 23% to 85,212). Both are owned by Reach.

The free Metro was the only national newspaper other than the FT to grow year-on-year (by 3%) as it has upped its distribution this year compared to the Covid-hit 2020 and 2021.

May 2022

The Metro and Financial Times were the only national newspapers to grow their print readerships from last May to this year.

Metro had an average free distribution of 1,074,594 in May, staying steady month-on-month but growing by 17% since last year due to putting out more copies as people have returned to offices and public transport since the final Covid-19 lockdown.

The only paid-for newspapers to grow their circulations month-on-month in May were the Financial Times, up 4% to 116,747 as growth in subscriptions, non-UK sales and bulk copies distributed in locations like airports and hotels offset a drop in newsstand sales, and the Sunday Mail in Scotland, up 0.2% to 69,923. The Sunday Mail did, however, fall by 17% year-on-year.

The FT was the only paid-for paper to grow its circulation compared to May 2021, in large part because it has increased its distribution of bulk copies post-Covid from 25,361 last year to 34,661.

London's free business newspaper City AM has also continued its post-Covid growth, reaching its highest distribution level since returning in September from an 18-month hiatus.

Editor Andy Silvester told Press Gazette's Future of Media Explained podcast this month that the paper's return to pre-pandemic levels "probably proves a lot of sceptics wrong". In May City AM's average free distribution was 82,455, down 4% on February 2020 but up 1% month-on-month.

The biggest month-on-month declines were at the Daily Mirror and Daily Star, both down 4%, while the biggest annual drop was at the Sunday People, down 24%. All three are Reach titles.

April 2022

The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror both marginally grew their print circulations in April compared to March, bucking the industry's usual downward trend.

The Daily Mail was up 1% month-on-month to 879,102 while the Daily Mirror also grew by 1% to 327,341.

However both fell by 11% compared to April 2021 and both figures were still their second-lowest respectively since ABC auditing began.

The Daily Mail's digital edition had a readership of 76,315 in April.

Free newspapers Metro, Evening Standard and City AM all also saw month-on-month growth, increasing their print distributions.

After an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus, free business newspaper City AM returned to print in September and has now upped its distribution for three months in a row. It is now at 81,713, its highest since February 2020 when it was on 85,738.

Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,074,889 copies for free in April.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles no longer publish their ABC print circulations, having opted to take them private and focus on other metrics - for example, online subscriptions for The Telegraph and Times.

The Financial Times saw an 8% decline month-on-month to 112,344 but grew by 12% on April last year, making it the only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year. This is largely because it is putting out more bulks - free copies in locations such as airports and hotels - than it did for much of the Covid-19 pandemic (now 33,849 compared to 22,487 last year) while it has also roughly tripled subscriptions in a year (to 9,776).

March 2022

The Mail on Sunday under editor David Dillon had a circulation of 748,965 in March.

Similar to its competitors, the newspaper's circulation has been in steady decline over several years. In March, it fell by 14% year-on-year and 2% compared to the month before. It is down a fifth from 952,914 two years earlier in March 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The Mail on Sunday is currently in the centre of a sexism row around a story reporting that Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner had been accused of crossing and uncrossing in the House of Commons to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dillon refused to meet Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, saying journalists should “not take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be”.

The Mail on Sunday's circulation remains behind the Daily Mail on 875,125 but a long way ahead of its next ABC-audited paid competitor, the Daily Mirror on 325,271.

The Sun, Times, Telegraph and Guardian titles all no longer publish their ABC-audited circulations.

The Financial Times was once again the only paid-for newspaper to see year-on-year growth, due to putting out more bulk copies in locations like airports and hotels than in March 2021. It was up 21% on the same time last year, to 121,490 - of which a third (40,958) were bulks.

However its circulation was higher in October to December last year, and its last pre-pandemic figure was 146,373 in March 2020. At that time about a fifth were bulk copies.

City AM's free distribution rose above 80,000 for the first time since it resumed printing in September after an 18-month Covid-enforced hiatus. It distributed an average of 80,440 copies in March compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

The Metro remains the most-distributed newspaper in the UK, putting out 1,073,993 copies for free in March.

February 2022

The Daily Mail's print circulation has fallen below 900,000 for the first time in more than 100 years.

In February the newspaper sold an average of 896,455 copies each day - or 767,021 on weekdays and 1,449,049 on Saturdays - following a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year decline of 7%.

The Daily Mail launched in 1896 with sales of 397,215. Within its first few years it surpassed one million and, despite a brief drop in 1915 in a row with the Government over troops' munition supplies, remained above that mark until the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sister title Mail on Sunday had an average circulation of 767,756 in February, down 2% month-on-month and 10% year-on-year.

The Sun, for many years the Daily Mail's closest ABC rival, no longer publishes its circulation - but the Mail overtook the red-top for the first time in 42 years in 2020.

The most-circulated national newspaper remains the free Metro, with a distribution of 1,066,327 that was up compared to both the month and year prior.

By contrast, fellow free newspaper the Evening Standard was down 9% year-on-year to 448,043.

The biggest annual declines were at Reach's Sunday People (95,637, down 20%) and Daily Star Sunday (107,478, down 19%).

January 2022

The Daily Mail was the only paid-for national newspaper to grow its circulation from December to January.

It reported 1% growth month-on-month, while its year-on-year decline of 5% to 909,201 was the smallest among the paid-for newspapers that don't use bulk copies.

The Financial Times grew by 17% year-on-year to 113,817 while the i grew by 1% to 142,598. Excluding bulk copies given away for free at locations such as airports and hotels, the FT grew by 3% to 79,446 and the i stayed steady on 137,483.

The biggest year-on-year decline was at Reach's Daily Star Sunday, which fell by 19% to 110,133. Month-on-month, the biggest decline was at the FT, which dropped by 18%.

Metro stayed steady between December and January but reported a 72% year-on-year jump. It built back its free distribution, which was massively scaled back in the early pandemic, and crossed the 1m mark once again in May last year.

December 2021

The Daily Star’s circulation has fallen below 200,000 for the first time in its 43-year history.

The tabloid had an average daily readership of 197,998 in December, according to the latest ABC figures, following a 2% month-on-month drop and a 14% decline since a year earlier.

The figures show continuing print readership decline as the lowest the Star’s circulation had gone during the first Covid-19 lockdown was 219,275 in April 2020.

It follows Reach stablemate Sunday People’s circulation falling below 100,000 in November.

In December the Daily Star Sunday and Sunday People saw the biggest annual circulation drops of 20% and 19% respectively.

The only paid-for newspaper to grow year-on-year was the Financial Times, which has upped the number of bulk copies given away for free since last year. However it still fell 2% month-on-month with bulk copies, newsstand sales and subscriptions all down in December.

The only newspaper to see month-on-month growth was City AM, which returned to print in September and in December was distributing an average of 78,418 copies each day compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

November 2021

The first ABC figures for London freesheet City AM since it returned to print in September show distribution is down 9% since February 2020.

Meanwhile, in November the Sunday People's circulation dropped by 21% to 99,915 - the first time since ABC records began in 2000 that its average circulation was below 100,000, even during the earlier Covid-19 lockdowns.

City AM distributed an average of 77,959 copies each weekday between 8 and 28 November, compared to 85,738 in February 2020.

Chief executive Jens Torpe told Press Gazette in September he hoped to reach pre-pandemic levels of distribution within about a month of relaunching.

According to the newspaper's ABC certificate it has hugely boosted its number of distribution points from 913 in February 2020 to 3,632. The business paper struck a deal to be found in all WeWork’s London locations and new offices, and went further out into the commuter belt to compensate for changing travel patterns as many City workers stuck with flexible working.

Average pagination has gone from 28 in February 2020 to 26, with editorial content up from 70% to 72%.

Nationally-published free newspaper Metro, which continued distributing throughout the pandemic for groups like key workers who kept travelling, remains 25% down on its February 2020 distribution level with 1.05m. It re-crossed the 1m mark in May and is the most-read newspaper in the UK.

The Evening Standard, which like City AM is only distributed in London, is 44% down on its February 2020 level with a distribution of 439,445 - but chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this was a "comfortable number that’s working well". It also kept publishing throughout the pandemic, but experimented with free home delivery for the first time.

The only newspapers to record year-on-year growth in November were Metro and the Financial Times, which both grew by 37%. The FT's newsstand sales were down by a quarter but subscriptions and bulk copies distributed for free were both up.

October 2021

The FT has grown its circulation by a third in the past year, and by a quarter between September and October, largely by putting out more free bulk copies.

The newspaper reported a circulation of 138,446 in October, which includes 55,222 bulk copies distributed for free in places like airports and hotels which have more than doubled since October 2020.

The FT's newsstand sales have decreased by 29% from 20,357 to 14,490 in a year although paid subscriptions grew 191% from 3,697 to 10,764. The FT also reports sales in other countries of 57,970 within its total.

It is the FT's highest circulation since the first three weeks of March 2020, when it was on 146,373, while the trend at most paid-for newspapers has been decline throughout 2021. (The i, which is up since January, is the only other national to put out bulks).

Meanwhile Metro has settled its free distribution on 1.05m which is up 35% compared to October 2020 when some workers had begun to return to work but at a slower pace than expected.

Its free rival in London, the Evening Standard, is down 10% compared to last year on 457,542.

The Saturday edition of the Daily Mail remains the most-read newspaper with a weekly circulation of 1.47m. The weekday edition sells 784,439. Both the daily and Sunday editions saw a 9% year-on-year decline.

The biggest year-on-year decline was once again at The Sunday People, which fell by 19% to 101,597. The Daily Star Sunday was down 18% to 118,260.

September 2021

Reach's Sunday People and Sunday Post newspapers recorded the biggest year-on-year declines in circulation in September of the publicly-audited national newspapers.

Both saw their circulations decline by 19% while the Sunday Mirror, Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Mail all fell by 14%. All are owned by Reach.

The Financial Times was the only paid-for newspaper to grow its circulation year-on-year, by 7% to a total of 111,898. However its free bulk copies, distributed in locations such as airports and hotels, increased by 41% to 32,351. Although paid subscriptions grew by 130% to 9,102, newsstand copies were down by a quarter to 15,154. Some 55,291 copies are sold in other countries.

Aside from the free Metro and the FT, every other newspaper remained steady between August and September changing by between 0% and -2%.

August 2021

The i was the only national newspaper to grow its paid circulation from July to August as subscriptions growth offset declining newsstand sales.

The i's print subscriptions grew from 23,199 in July to 25,223 in August. At the same time it put out more paid multiple copies, known as bulks, in locations such as airports and hotels (rising from 4,006 to 4,620).

Its average circulation therefore grew from 143,486 to 144,570. However this was still 5% down on last August.

The August ABC figures are the first in which the Guardian and Observer are absent, having chosen to keep their circulations private as News UK and the Telegraph did last year.

The Guardian's departure from the grid comes after its circulation was overtaken by the Financial Times in June for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Previously the audited circulation of the FT had been above that of the Guardian since 2000, the earliest available online ABC records.

The FT was again the only paid-for title to have grown year-on-year as it distributes bulk copies that were missing during the pandemic. It grew 12% year-on-year to 105,213 in August but fell by 2% from July.

The free Metro more than doubled its August 2020 figure following the end of the winter lockdown and the ramping up of its distribution to reach people increasingly venturing out again. It has now distributed an average of more than 1m copies per day for three months in a row.

July 2021

Putting on bulk copies has helped the FT to grow its circulation by nearly a quarter (24%) year-on-year while sales of The i paper have fallen by just 1% over the same period, new ABC figures for July show.

The FT sells more than 107,000 copies, of which more than 32,000 are bulks. The i, which is now part of the Daily Mail group, has a circulation of more than 143,000 copies, with some 4,000 bulks.

The free Metro's distribution was in excess of 1m in July 2021, nearly tripling its print output during the height of the pandemic.

All other newspapers audited by ABC reported a fall in year-on-year circulation. The Telegraph, Sun and Times titles are not included.

The Daily Mail has the largest paid-for circulation among the titles audited by ABC at more than 933,000. Its sister title the Mail on Sunday is behind on a little over 813,000 copies.

June 2021

Reach’s national Sunday titles continued to experienced the biggest year-on-year circulation drops in the industry in June.

The Sunday Post dropped by 16%, Daily Star Sunday was down 15%, Scottish tabloid Sunday Mail was down 14%, the Sunday People was down 13% and the Sunday Mirror by 11%. The Sunday Express was Reach’s best faring Sunday title, falling by 7%.

The best performance among paid-for newspapers was at the Financial Times which grew by 38% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month to 108,014.

As lockdown restrictions have eased the FT has put the number of bulk copies which go to locations like airports and hotels back up by 751% - from 3,534 to 30,093 – putting it on a similar level to June 2019 when 31, 057 bulk copies were distributed. The number of copies it sold in other countries was also up, although this was half 2019 levels.

No other paid-for newspapers grew month-on-month, and the i was the only other to grow year-on-year, although this could mainly be attributed to an increase in bulk distribution similar to the FT.

However the i's bulks remain, by contrast, far below 2019 levels - 50,250 in June 2019 versus 3,699 this year.

The Metro has continued putting its free distribution back up as lockdown restrictions continued to ease. It went up by 10% between May and June and 224% compared to last June, topping 1m on average.

By comparison its rival in London, the free Evening Standard, has decided to maintain its distribution at Covid levels and concentrate on online growth. It was distributing 492,406 copies on average in June.

Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting the ups and downs of the UK national press in the past 20 years – with a spotlight on how Covid-19 affected circulations in the past year.

May 2021

The Financial Times and the i were the only paid UK national newspapers to grow their circulations in May compared to last year – despite the first Covid-19 lockdown's severe impact on spring 2020 newsstand sales.

Both newspapers reported growth even when their bulk copies (those distributed for free at locations such as airports and hotels) are taken into account.

The i grew its circulation by 3% year-on-year excluding bulks to 140,721 or by 5% to 144,192 when bulks are included.

Meanwhile the FT grew by 2% to 77,218, excluding bulks, in May. Including bulks it was up 30% to 102,579.

Every other national newspaper saw an annual decline, with the smallest at the Daily Express, owned by Reach, which fell by 1% to 239,024.

May continued the trend of Reach’s Sunday titles experiencing the biggest year-on-year drops, however (scroll down or click here to see April's report).

Scotland’s Sunday Post and Sunday Mail were down 14% and 11% respectively. Nationally the Daily Star Sunday was down 12% and the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were both down 7%.

In May last year most national newspapers began to recover after their circulations had been hit hard by the first five weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Month-on-month, the FT (2%), i (1%) and the Guardian (0%) were the only paid-for titles not to see a dip. The biggest decline from April was at the Mail on Sunday (5%).

The ABC figures also demonstrated the impact of loosening Covid-19 restrictions on free newspapers as Metro and the Evening Standard increased their distributions by 190% and 9% respectively compared to May last year.

April 2021

Reach’s four Sunday titles – the Daily Star Sunday, Sunday Express, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – were the only national titles to have a lower circulation in April than they did during the UK’s strictest Covid-19 lockdown one year earlier.

The rest of the UK’s national newspapers are back above the circulations of their worst Covid slump, which took place amid uncertainties about the future for the industry as the UK was told to stay at home at the start of the pandemic.

Despite its 7% annual decline, the Daily Star Sunday had the biggest month-on-month growth of 3%. Most paid-for titles were able to keep their April circulations similar to March, with a drop of -1% the largest nationally and of -2% at the Sunday Mail the biggest overall.

The Scottish title, which is also owned by Reach, was down year-on-year by 6% to 85,450.

Despite the declines at Reach's Sunday titles, its national dailies the Mirror and Express were up by 2% and 3% respectively compared to April last year.

The Financial Times grew by 13% year-on-year to 100,215 in April. However it has upped its number of free copies distributed at locations such as airports and hotels from 7,042 last April to 22,487 – excluding these, its circulation has decreased 5% to 77,728.

By contrast the i, the only other paper to include bulk free copies in its ABC audited circulation, was up by 7% if they are included (143,380) and 9% if they are not (140,013).

This equals the Observer, which was also up 9% compared to last April to reach 140,894 copies each week.

The i’s DMGT stablemates the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were also both up by 4% and 5% respectively on last year. DMGT’s free title Metro has been “building back” its distribution, as editor Ted Young told Press Gazette last week, to reach an average of 805,471 per day in April. It then topped 1m on 17 May as lockdown restrictions eased.

The Evening Standard also increased its free distribution compared to last April, by 16% to 492,575. Chief executive Charles Yardley has told Press Gazette he is planning to keep numbers at around half a million going forward.

March 2021

Paid-for national newspaper circulations have fallen by almost a fifth (18%) on average since just before the first Covid-19 lockdown.

The final year-on-year comparison with pre-Covid ABC newspaper circulations shows the biggest declines have been at the i and Financial Times, which are both down by about a third to 143,204 and 100,781 respectively.

They are the only two paid-for ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports. Excluding bulks, the FT’s circulation fell by 35% year-on-year and the i’s fell by 18%.

The smallest, and only single-digit, declines were at the Mail on Sunday and Observer which both saw their circulation fall by 9% in the past year to 867,077 and 142,277 respectively in March 2021.

ABC’s March 2020 report spanned 2 to 22 March, stopping before the first lockdown came into place – although many people began working from home and curtailing social gatherings from about a week earlier.

The Evening Standard’s free circulation is down by 29% to 494,364 compared to March last year. The newspaper’s chief executive Charles Yardley told Press Gazette this month he remains committed to print but will not raise the distribution back to pre-pandemic levels.

Free rival Metro has dropped its distribution by half to 695,444. It initially dropped by 70% in April last year and rose to a

The biggest-selling issue of a UK national newspaper remains the Daily Mail’s Saturday issue, which sold an average 1,588,164 copies each week last month compared to 1,699,891 in March last year.

February 2021

The Observer reported the smallest drop in print circulation among UK national newspapers in February – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

The Observer, which had an average circulation of 140,920, was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit drop. The next smallest decline was the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 12% to 848,526.

Sister title the Daily Mail was the only publication to see month-on-month growth from January, up 1% to 964,825. It was 15% behind the 1,134,184 it had in February 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK.

However, the Daily Mail’s digital edition grew its average circulation by 4% from 94,171 in January to 98,107.

[Read more: See latest online audience data published by Pamco here]

In February free titles Metro and Evening Standard distributed 58% and 38% fewer copies respectively compared to the year before. Both are continuing to publish for key worker commuters although most people remain under a “stay at home” order, with the Standard also delivering to doorsteps in certain parts of London.

The biggest paid-for circulation drops in February were at the Financial Times (down 36%) and i (35%), the only two ABC-audited titles continuing to distribute bulk copies to public locations such as airports.

Excluding bulks, the FT was down 40% and the i was down 18% - taking it below the Daily Star’s 20% decline.

January 2021

The UK’s current coronavirus lockdown has not hit national newspaper circulations as hard as last year’s strict April restrictions did, according to new figures from ABC.

However, most titles are now again below the circulation levels to which they had begun to recover in May last year.

The Daily Mail’s print circulation has fallen to its lowest since the peak of the Covid-19 crisis in April.

The UK’s top-selling newspaper sold an average of 960,019 copies each day in January, an 18% drop year-on-year. In April it reported a circulation of 944,981, which grew to 979,836 in May.

The Mail overtook The Sun in May 2020 and Press Gazette understands it has since consolidated its lead.

Digital edition sales add a further 77,736 to the Mail's daily circulation figure, according to ABC - keeping it above 1m.

In March last year, before the first UK lockdown, the Mail was selling in excess of 1.1m copies per day.

Also below their May 2020 circulations were the Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express, Daily Star on Sunday, Sunday People, and the Guardian.

Only the Observer, i and Financial Times were above their May figures from last year in January.

Several national newspapers saw bigger year-on-year drops in January than the Mail: the FT’s circulation fell by 39%, the i by 35%, the Sunday Post by 22%, the Daily Star by 21%, the Daily Express by 19% and the Daily Mirror by 19%.

The smallest year-on-year drop was at the Observer, which saw a decline of 8% to a circulation of 143,764.

The biggest month-on-month fall from December was also at the FT (down by 8% to 97,067) followed by the Daily Star Sunday, i and Guardian which were all down by 5%.

The only title to report any growth was Scottish tabloid the Sunday Mail, which was up 1% month-on-month to 88,819.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were down 58% and 39% respectively year on year in January.

December 2020

The Mail on Sunday reported the smallest drop in print circulation in December – but this was still down by 9% on the year before.

It had an average circulation of 954,497 in December 2019, down to 865,439 last month. It was the only newspaper not to see a double-digit year-on-year decline, with the Observer the second smallest drop (by 10% to 147,296).

The Financial Times saw its print circulation fall by more than a third (35%) year-on-year to 105,358 – the biggest fall among the UK’s paid-for national newspapers.

However, the FT did grow by 1% month-on-month as it continues to recover from the initial Covid-19 lockdown slump common to each of the titles.

The Guardian saw the biggest month-on-month growth of 2% in December.

The biggest fall from November 2020 was at the Sunday People, down 5% to 120,429.

Wales went into lockdown on 20 December while Scotland and Northern Ireland were placed under tight restrictions from Boxing Day and much of London and the south east of England entered strict Tier 4 restrictions days before Christmas.

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 38% down respectively on the previous year’s print readership.

November 2020

Several national newsbrands managed a month on month increase in print circulation in November, with The Observer seeing the biggest rise at 4%.

The Observer's print circulation rose from 145,680 to 152,129 having remained steady in the previous month.

The Sunday Express, the Sunday People and the Guardian also saw print sales rise 1%, after seeing declines between September and October

The Observer saw the smallest year-on-year decline at 5%. It was the only title not to report a double-digit year-on-year fall.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (36% to 104,024) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 46% and 40% down on the previous year's print readership.

October 2020

The Observer was the only national print newspaper brand not to see a year on year print circulation decline in October.

The Observer's print readership remained steady on 145,680 as every other title except the Mail on Sunday, which fell by 9%, reported a double-digit year-on-year decline.

The Financial Times had the biggest paid-for decline (39% to 105,592) followed by the i (31% to 151,888).

Metro and the Evening Standard, which had their free commuter distribution models hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, were still 45% and 39% down on the previous year's print readership - although Metro managed to add a fifth back onto its output in October.

Press Gazette is hosting the Future of Media Technology Conference. For more information, visit NSMG.live

The post Newspaper ABCs: Sunday Mail in Scotland manages to hold off monthly decline in October appeared first on Press Gazette.

Bosses at Metro have told Press Gazette the free newspaper is now profitable in both print and digital showing there is life yet in free dailies.

In March 2023 Metro underwent a major restructure to deal with financial losses deemed “in no way sustainable” following the Covid-19 pandemic, advertising downturn and increases in newsprint, fuel and ink costs. Meanwhile, the Evening Standard is currently moving from daily to weekly distribution in response to six years of losses.

The Metro newsroom was restructured to create one editorial team for print and online led by editor-in-chief Deborah Arthurs, resulting in a number of redundancies and departures including former newspaper editor Ted Young.

Owner DMG Media’s commercial arm Mail Metro Media, which also deals with ad sales for the Mail brands, the i, The Telegraph and the New Scientist, created one ad sales team for the whole portfolio but also a separate team working alongside it which is dedicated to Metro.

In an interview at DMGT’s Kensington office on Tuesday, Metro managing director Richard Thomson and commercial director Jo Mazenko told Press Gazette the brand has had a “very positive journey for the last 18 months”.

Thomson said: “I think what’s made the difference is the commercial team have really worked out how to sell Metro, how to give it a different identity to traditional newsbrands that operate across print and digital and in apps and then on social media, in such a way that we’ve really been able to grow market share considerably, grow revenue considerably. And I think that’s what’s made the big difference. We’ve just relearnt how to tell a brilliant story about this brilliant brand.”

Asked what that Metro identity and USP is, Mazenko said: “We give the people what they want. We don’t take ourselves too seriously when appropriate. I think it’s Metro’s role to provide the UK with access to free, impartial and trustworthy news. But it’s news and entertainment.”

Thomson added: “And we have both scale and quality. So we reach five million people every day and it’s an incredibly valuable audience… that are on the go in the morning, regardless of whether they work in the hospitality sector, or whether they’re captains of industry, they are going to work and they’re spending money.”

In May, Metro was the eighth biggest news website in the UK with an audience of 16.1 million, according to Ipsos iris, following an increase of 17% year-on-year – the largest growth among the top ten sites.

It has also revamped its social strategy, increasing website page views from social by 20% compared to the previous three-month period, reaching 73 million in March to June. Last week it was shortlisted for the website of the year prize at the Press Gazette Future of Media Awards.

But Thomson and Mazenko said print is staying strong too. Its ABC circulation was 951,294 in June, a figure it has hovered around since January 2023. It maintained that reach by expanding distribution with bus companies Metroline and Stagecoach in London.

Almost half (47%) of its distribution is done on buses, which Mazenko noted are more strike-proof than the trains and also let advertisers get close to shops on the high streets, with 29% at rail terminals and 17% at London Underground stations. Metro has editions in Merseyside, the Midlands, North East, North West, Scotland and Yorkshire centred around the bigger cities.

Wi-Fi and WFH: Metro says it’s holding strong amid changing commutes

The Evening Standard, Metro’s direct competitor as a free newspaper in London albeit distributed later in the day, announced at the end of May it will drop its daily print edition to go weekly. It will initially drop its Monday and Friday editions from 2 August.

The Standard partly blamed “shorter commuting weeks” and “widespread Wi-Fi along our commuting routes” for the decision.

But Mazenko said neither are factors currently affecting Metro.

She said Wi-Fi on the tube “doesn’t really faze us, because there’s been Wi-Fi on the underground since 2012 and the majority of our distribution is not underground anyway”.

Asked about 4G and 5G mobile signal, with most people able to browse the internet on buses and overground trains as well as the London Underground gradually adding mobile connectivity to the tube network, Thomson added that people switching between Metro and their phone is “just a supplementary part of their morning routine”.

Mazenko described Metro as “snackable news – we’re not the be-all and end-all” and Thomson added that he sees people on the afternoon commute pull out the morning Metro they saved from earlier in the day to do the puzzles.

This is why, he revealed, Metro is “going to dial up our investment in puzzles, because we know it has huge pickup credentials, so why wouldn’t we support it more?”

Of working at home habits, Mazenko said it has been a key job of the Metro commercial team to explain to advertisers that many people have returned regularly to the office post-Covid.

“Unfortunately, media and advertising are probably the last industry to be going back full time,” she said. “We know that over 50% of our audience never work from home. And we’ve had a really big job educating our customers, because in their minds, they work from the office maybe two or three days a week. 31% are hybrid. And only 15% always work from home.”

Metro monitors TfL data on public transport usage and said bus and Tube usage is 15% down compared to June 2019.

Thomson also noted that Metro’s one million print distribution is still only a “tiny percentage” of “the number of people that move through the environment that we operate in” across the UK’s major cities, meaning there is still plenty of opportunity even if commuter numbers are down.

Free London business newspaper City AM last year ended its Friday print edition in response to workers in the Square Mile preferring to end the week at home. But Mazenko said Metro’s distribution is the same each weekday as overall people do commute across the week (in fact, Thomson later added, the Friday circulation is the highest because it stays in the bins throughout the weekend).

“This is another thing we get asked all the time: ‘no one commutes on a Monday or Friday?'” Mazenko said. “Well, they do, and we’ve got all the data to back it up.”

Last year then-editor Young said “bus and rail strikes have certainly not helped us” when setting out Metro’s losses. But Thomson said this week: “It’s very infrequent that we will have a difficult conversation with our advertising partners because of strike action because of the very diverse nature of our distribution.

“So if TfL are striking, we still have an enormous reach across buses and trains. If the trains are striking, we still have enormous reach across the buses and the underground, so it allows us to weather those difficult storms with a compelling response that’s accurate.”

Writing ‘less, better’ content

Overall, Thomson said revenues are “substantially up” in 2024 compared to 2023 when they “made all of the necessary changes to put the business onto a sustainable financial footing”.

And Metro in both print and online is now profitable (although they report together financially).

“And with the news regarding the Evening Standard, one of our new USPs is going to be we’re the only daily newspaper operating in London shortly, sadly… and therefore, we absolutely believe that it can go from strength to strength as a platform, whilst we invest in the 360 publishing environment that we operate in.”

He teased plans to relaunch the Metro website in the autumn, with the help of its first dedicated product manager, and to grow its presence in both long and short-form video and audio.

Metro has already invested in its social video team, he said, with the aim of building a strong audience while grappling with how to monetise it.

Its six Tiktok accounts have 620,000 followers in total with more than one billion views since the start of October, of which almost a quarter (226 million) were in June alone.

Metro has also invested in its audience team which Thomson said has “allowed us to get under the skin around what content works for our audience.

“Everybody purports to be winning the strategy of writing less, better content, but from the data that we see on a daily basis, it really feels like we are beginning to turn a corner on that ambition. And we are writing less content than we have done in a long time but our page view growth is really impressive, which means we’re writing more better content for our audience, in the areas that they want to consume on our platforms.”

Online revenue growth has come as a result of this page view increase leading to “solid growth in open marketplace programmatic advertising and direct advertising where we’re winning business directly with agencies and clients for our website, not dissimilar to how we win business for the newspaper”, Thomson said.

It is also coming from people reading Metro content on MSN (through a deal for the amount of views generated by its content on the platform) and on Apple News (publishers can sell advertising including video ads around their content on the platform or get a cut of ads from Apple’s own backfill partners if the space goes unsold).

“It’s a really attractive audience,” Mazenko said of Apple News. “We’re seeing really good engagement with the ads that we are serving. So with our native package that we run on Metro.co.uk, we’ve been able to double the views by using Apple News So it’s a really exciting space for us.”

But print remains an area of innovation too, Mazenko said, with commercial sales through the new Metro 360 strategy moving away from just “static adverts” to include new ad formats, branded podcasts and experiential add-ons such as Halo character Master Chief giving out copies of the Metro with its first ever “mirror board” cover wrap bought by streaming service Paramount+.

These premium campaigns, also including new ad formats like C-shapes on the front page, are leading to print revenue growth alongside traditional display campaigns, Thomson said. Every day of the week of this interview had a cover wrap booked in.

Metro newspaper: ‘We are genuinely on the right trajectory’

Metro is also gearing up to announce a partnership that will see it include more entertainment content to make the most of its presence on Fridays and across the weekend.

Meanwhile last week Metro announced a partnership with Mediaforce’s package to advertisers of 39 regional daily titles. Mediaforce managing director Scott Gill explained in a statement: “The Metroforce proposition will be the new entry point into printed news media for clients and brands. It will offer bigger, broader reach than any other printed news offering; with unmatched coverage of towns and cities big and small. Watch this space for the companion digital solution to this innovative new tie-up.”

Asked for her most valuable lessons from the period since last year’s relaunch, Mazenko said: “From my side, I would say, the biggest lesson really is we’ve learned that we need to evolve, we can’t rest on our laurels and just sit still, even for a day, because there’s always something new. We’ve had to educate pretty much all of our clients and agencies that people are commuting again and the value of our audience and our product.

“But I think one of the biggest lessons is just how collaborative that we are internally. The chairman’s [Lord Rothermere] supportive, Deborah Arthurs is amazing, her door’s always open.”

Thomson concluded: “I think the thing that excites me the most about Metro is that we’re going to prove to the business and the marketplace that year one post-relaunch wasn’t a fluke, and we can do it again.

“We are genuinely on the right trajectory, both from a top line point of view with our revenues and because our cost base is the right cost base for the business that we run, and that makes us sustainable.”

The post Free daily Metro now profitable after 2023 restructure appeared first on Press Gazette.

Up to 15 sport staff are being made redundant at the Mail titles as publisher DMG Media continues a broader digital shift across the business.

The cuts coincide with sport journalist job cuts elsewhere in the industry, coming shortly after star Times writer Henry Winter was made redundant and a month after sports betting business Livescore laid off its news team.

Mail staff had been told earlier this month to expect “significant restructuring” on the sports desk.

Those affected include cricket correspondent Paul Newman, racing correspondent Marcus Townend, Spanish football reporter Pete Jenson and chief sports reporter Matt Hughes, as well as several production staff.

Despite previous reports that rugby union correspondent Chris Foy had also lost his job Press Gazette understands he remains in his role.

Affected staff will leave the paper by the middle of May.

Lee Clayton, the Mail’s global publisher for sport, previously emailed staff saying the desk would be changed “with a digital team leading the commissioning process, supported by newspaper experts who can publish print editions to tight deadlines”.

Sport redundancies latest in more than year-long Daily Mail digital shift

The cuts mark the latest in ongoing changes at DMG Media as it shifts emphasis towards digital production and faces ongoing decline in the size of the print business.

In late 2022 staff at the Daily Mail and Mail Online, which had long been kept separate, were told the two titles would stop producing rival versions of the same stories and that more print journalists would write digital-first stories.

A few months later Metro editor Ted Young stepped down to be succeeded by Metro.co.uk editor Deborah Arthurs, who has since implemented “one clear editorial voice” across both the print and web versions of the brand and added “.co.uk” to the newspaper’s name.

In March 2023 staff at the print Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were told the papers would be brought “much closer together” as audiences shifted online, and dozens of journalists at the titles took redundancy as a result the following May.

Sport teams at the Mail titles have been cut: four senior sports journalists at the Mail on Sunday left in October and this January four of seven sports writers at the Scottish Daily Mail were put at risk of redundancy.

Away from job cuts, the digital shift has led the Mail titles to start putting ten to 15 articles per day behind an online paywall.

News team cut at sports betting company Livescore

Separately from the Mail news Press Gazette has learned betting business Livescore laid off its news team in March, replacing their coverage with stories aggregated from the web. Press Gazette understand around 15 jobs are affected.

Livescore runs an eponymous sports betting app and Virgin Bet, and had previously employed journalists to write about sports news for the app and its website. It continues to provide news stories and predictions to supplement its betting services, but most content is now provided by agencies PA Media and Spotlight Sports Group.

Livescore declined to comment.

The post Up to 15 journalists cut in latest round of sport redundancies at Mail titles appeared first on Press Gazette.

Mail and Metro publisher DMG Media is rapidly expanding its audio portfolio after the arrival of head of podcasts Jamie East last summer.

In less than a year DMG Media has gone from just one podcast, its journalist-led hit The Trial of Lucy Letby, to having several audio products being produced and 19 in pre-production – mostly for the Mail but also for Metro.

East told Press Gazette: “I don’t know what everyone else is up to but… I doubt very much there’s any other company in the UK making that many podcasts.”

East joined the Mail, Metro, i and New Scientist publisher in August last year as head of podcasts and told Press Gazette he has been given “complete creative freedom, which is terrifying and wonderful”.

He created a strategy deck within his first month at the publisher “and everything is now being made,” he said.

Already live are several recent launches:

• Weekly football podcast It’s All Kicking Off, hosted by Mail Sport football editor Ian Ladyman and columnist Chris Sutton
• Straight to the Comments (no connection to an independent podcast of the same name), hosted by Youtubers Archie Manners and Joshua Pieters, alongside celebrity guests, who react to Mail Online comments
• The Sidebar, a showbiz podcast hosted by Good Morning Britain entertainment editor Richard Arnold with the name riffing on Mail Online’s well-known “sidebar of shame”
• New series Lost Voices with the first season about the last two men to be hanged in Britain for being gay and hosted by Labout MP Chris Bryant who wrote a book about them.

The Trial of Lucy Letby showed ‘what success can look like’

But The Daily Mail’s first podcast hit was The Trial of Lucy Letby, which launched before East arrived, running for more than 60 episodes until September and getting shortlisted in the podcast category at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Awards.

Unusually it produced daily updates about Letby’s trial as it was ongoing and grappled with the legal challenges that came with that, rather than reporting on a case retrospectively as true crime podcasts tend to do.

Under East it has since rebranded as The Trial and respawns for major cases that can be similarly followed live by the Mail’s journalists. So far it has covered the trial of the killer of Irish primary school teacher Ashling Murphy, the murders of teenager Brianna Ghey, and the latest is the ongoing case of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon in relation to the death of their baby.

East told Press Gazette The Trial has had about 23 million downloads so far and there’s another coming up in around five weeks “that no one will expect and it’s just incredible – it will blow people’s minds”.

He said he is “really proud” of how The Trial has been forged into a brand and created a “completely new sub-genre of true crime”.

Referring to the legal challenges, East said the fact DMG Media head of editorial legal Liz Hartley and her team “even entertained the thought of letting us do it is a miracle in itself”.

“No-one else could do that, with the exception of maybe The Times if they really wanted to… because there’s so much at stake with a trial like that in terms of being in contempt of court and whatnot, there’s no one else that could do it the way that we’ve done it at all.

“And it shows – we’ve kept almost all of the audience that we had from Lucy Letby over the following three seasons. We’ve got an incredibly loyal and engaged audience.”

The Trial showed the business “what success can look like,” East said, although he admitted: “It’s a slight anomaly, I did say not every single podcast is going to be the size of The Trial. I’d love them to be. The Trial is a juggernaut, it’s an absolute behemoth of a podcast.”

Lord Rothermere ‘walks the walk’ on building a 360-degree company

East said part of the attraction of joining DMG was starting its audio operation almost from scratch, including building a new studio, which opened in November, and hiring a team, which is now a core staff of five plus executive producers coming in for specific series.

East said he took the job “simply because they weren’t doing anything, or nothing with any deep roots.

“I’ve worked at different publishers before, and I’ve done work for Netflix and work for Sky and worked for big places before, and when you’re given a job like this you’re normally inheriting a lot of stuff, which is sometimes great but more often than not, not great.”

East previously ran his own production company, at which he launched and hosted daily news podcast The Smart 7. (He has stepped away but the podcast continues to sound like it is hosted by him thanks to AI trained on his archive of episodes.)

In that kind of job, East said, “your dream is to be able to realise all of your ideas creatively and from an organisational and from a tech point of view. What they did here was just allow me to come and do it.”

East specifically cited the vision of DMGT chairman Lord Rothermere, saying he is a rare media leader who “walks the walk” on evolving into a 360-degree company.

“What we’re allowed to do in this building is you literally can just walk over there and start making it happen… it’s about how we evolve the business, which is historically a print business and is already fast turning into a proper 360 business, whether it’s Tiktok, whether it’s long-form video, whether it’s short-form video, whether it’s audio, whether it’s digital, everything’s in the building, and being able to be the audio part of that puzzle is brilliant.

“I could immediately see where audio slotted in to the long-term plan of the business.”

[Read more: How Daily Mail went from voice of Middle England to Tiktok sensation]

The other benefit of being at DMG Media, East added, is that “there’s not an idea I could come up with in this building that I couldn’t find a home for.

“If I came up with a podcast idea that maybe didn’t align with the Mail so much, I’ve got Metro, I’ve got New Scientist, I’ve got i.”

Of his “complete creative freedom”, East said: “You wouldn’t get it anywhere [else]… I’ve worked for many different styles of publishers and media organisations, all of them like to think of themselves as ‘we nurture creativity’ and actually, this is one of the few places that actually has done that.”

Daily Mail 50+ readers ‘one of the most underserved’ in podcasts

One of East’s starting points was to use the Mail’s extensive data to look at what its readers like, with royals, showbiz and crime appearing to be obvious opportunities.

The key question was “what are they currently underserved in, in an audio world? The Daily Mail’s print readers are one of the most underserved sectors in podcasts and audio across the world. The 50-plus is the last great untapped market really with audio, with the exception of probably kids. So that’s an opportunity there.”

This is why The Sidebar and Straight to the Comments were first out of the gate: “Those two were quite easy to pull together because it was like, what is the low hanging fruit there? What can we make out of the content that we already create and already own and are already synonymous with that also allows us to be slightly meta, and also slightly unexpected?”

East agreed that the podcast market is “pretty saturated” right now but said it is “saturated with a lot of crap”.

“99% of all podcasts have less than 30 plays,” he said. “We are spoilt for choice when you go onto your Spotify or your Apple, there’s just thousands and thousands of them. But it doesn’t mean any of them are any good.

“And as I said before, it always starts off with a story. So if you’re telling a story in a different way, or in a new way, or you’re using your own platform to tell that story, such as Straight to the Comments or Sidebar. Then you’ve got a point of difference already.”

East was particularly critical of “podcasts that just have famous people on them for the sake of it, because I think that fad will die out pretty soon… I would say that that’s probably a saturated market, that there’s no room at the inn anymore for those kinds of things. So I’m looking ahead to what are people going to be wanting to listen to once they’re bored of those ones.”

As a publisher, DMG Media is “interested in ideas and stories, and IP ultimately”. This contrasts to “just getting someone well known and putting a microphone in front of them” which East said “doesn’t feel to me like a fully-formed idea”.

Showbiz does present a gap in the market, East said. He cited Goalhanger’s The Rest is Entertainment, hosted by TV presenter and author Richard Osman and British Journalism Award-winning Guardian columnist Marina Hyde, which can see them “talking about Ofcom. It’s completely different to Richard Arnold and [TOWIE star] Bobby Norris talking about Adele drinking champagne out of a shoe. There’s room for the two to coexist.”

East also cited true crime, which “hasn’t ebbed away at all, if anything it’s continued to grow, so it shows that there is room for more and more and more podcasts to coexist. Just because you like one podcast doesn’t preclude you from” listening to others, he said.

The Mail’s extensive archive of published and research material presents an opportunity both in true crime and other genres, he added.

“People like Stephen Wright, George Odling, Guy Adams, there’s some incredible journalism in this building. They have the biggest pool of archive that I’ve ever seen. So you bet your bottom dollar we’re looking at how we utilise that because the archive that DMG has is phenomenal.”

News podcasts ‘expensive and time consuming’

The other reason podcasts present an opportunity within the business is they are “completely passive” unlike newspapers, websites or videos for which “you have to literally stop what you’re doing and concentrate solely on that task”, East said.

“It allows us to access our readers and listeners and viewers… in ways that we haven’t been able to access them before,” he said, citing as examples when people are in the car, in the gym or on the dog walk.

Despite the opportunities overall East said he is “not at the stage where we’re looking at news podcasts, because they’re very expensive, they’re very time consuming, and it’s really saturated”.

East is working with Mail Metro Media chief revenue officer Dominic Williams on monetising the new podcasts but said there is “no dark arts to commercialising podcasts. It’s host reads, it’s sponsorships, it’s programmatic, it’s all of the above at the same time, and as many of them as possible”.

But he added: “You can’t commercialise podcasts until you’ve got growth, so we’re concentrating more on growth than commercials at the moment. But it’s healthy. We’re making money, because we’re doing 22 million downloads. So just as a by-product of having that size audience, you make money.”

East also has no immediate plans to put out full-length visualisations of DMG’s podcasts on Youtube, although the team does produce many social clips. “From a commercial point of view it’s pretty straightforward. You make far less money on Youtube than you do on Spotify,” he said.

“It’s as simple as that. The brass tacks of it is from a CPM point of view, it’s incredibly expensive to make video, and you don’t really make a lot of money from it. You have to achieve huge scale in order to do that. Whereas actually comparatively you can make a lot more with a lot less in audio. It’s a lot cheaper to make, and it’s a lot quicker to make.

“And if you’re great at making audio, it doesn’t mean that you’re great at making a video and vice versa. There are cases to be made for certain titles to be cross platform. But I haven’t got there yet. We’re still pretty young.”

Aim for podcasts to be ‘fully integrated’ into Mail publisher

Asked where he’d like audio at DMG to be in a year’s time, East said for it to be “fully integrated” into the business.

“I mean genuinely plugged in,” he said. “One of the big things that I’ve been working on since I started was how can we plug into Mail Online? That’s where our audience is. Global have their outdoor business, they have their radio business, we have Mail Online.”

As well as a podcast player on the website, East said they would want to be able to connect podcast episodes to relevant content in the Mail Online archive. “It’s about work smarter, not harder.”

There is also Mail+, the recently-launched partial paywall on Mail Online which sees readers charged £4.99 per month for up to 15 premium articles a day and a curated newsletter.

East cited Wondery, which gives paying users ad-free listening, exclusive episodes and early access to podcasts that will later be free to all, as a potential model to incorporate in future.

“Both podcasts and Mail+ are really in their infancy and I think both need to mature before we can use each other to the best of our abilities,” East said.

“So if I have five podcasts and they’re all number one hits, then there would be a really strong business case for putting ad-free versions on Mail+ or bonus versions on Mail+. Until I get there, there’s no point in creating that but that’s certainly in the back of our mind.”

In the meantime East is aware that not all of the upcoming releases will work – but said: “As long as my strike rate is good, that will make me happy.”

And he told publishers: “There’s no shame in cancelling podcasts and I wish more people did that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying a podcast for three months and realising it’s not going to work, let’s just switch it off and try something else.”

Non-DMG podcasts admired by Jamie East:

• Reply All – East said “they made what I consider to be the best podcast episode of any genre ever”, The Case of the Missing Hit, “that for me crystallised everything that’s amazing about podcasts”
• Dissect– A “super nerdy” music podcast
• The Adam Buxton Podcast
• The Louis Theroux Podcast
• Some of the Goalhanger The Rest Is… titles
• Smartless – hosted by actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett, East said it is a “great example of that eavesdropping genre… when you can genuinely tell that people are friends it makes the world of difference”
• How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
• Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV on BBC Sounds

See more podcast listening tips given to Press Gazette this month by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby here.

The post Daily Mail podcast chief Jamie East on publisher’s rapidly expanding audio empire appeared first on Press Gazette.

Mail publisher DMGT grew revenue in 2023 as a strong performance from UAE-headquartered B2B events division offset falling income at its UK consumer newsbrands.

Online advertising revenue from brands including Mail Online fell 3% year on year to £166m for the year to 30 September.

Print advertising is now DMGT’s smallest revenue stream after a 16% year-on-year decline.

Similarly The Guardian has reported overall advertising revenue down 16% year on year for the nine months to December.

DMGT owns the Mail titles, i, Metro and New Scientist. Mail Online has just introduced a partial paywall, while at the i digital subscriptions overtook print last year.

Overall it made a pre-tax loss of £12.6m on turnover up 2% to £997m.

But when one-off costs and accounting charges like “impairment of goodwill” are removed from the picture the group made an adjusted pre-tax profit of £41m.

Growth of £63m in revenue from events and exhibitions made up for a £33m drop in revenue from consumer media and a £7m fall in income from property information.

Circulation, excluding print subscriptions, remains the group’s biggest revenue source on £247m despite a 4% year-on-year decline.

Year-on-year comparisons are exacerbated by the 2022 financial year being a week longer (53 weeks) than 2023.

Consumer media revenue fell by 5%, primarily due to reduced advertising revenues, but remained the biggest part of the group on £624.5m, versus £210.3m for property information and £162.6m for events and exhibitions.

The property information division includes US-based data and analytics company Trepp and UK-based hybrid estate agency Yopa, for which DMGT increased its stake from 45% to 74% in January 2023 before fully consolidating it as a subsidiary.

DMGT’s events division is headquartered in the UAE and covers sectors including energy, construction, coatings, hospitality, leisure and interior design. Its biggest events the Abu Dhabi-based energy show ADIPEC, construction event Big 5 Dubai and Gastech in Singapore and overall it said they had continued to recover in both exhibitor demand and visitor attendance since the Covid-19 pandemic.

DMGT said it has five revenue types:

• “subscriptions, notably in the US property information business and within consumer media
• “circulation from sales of the paid-for newspapers
• “advertising in the consumer media products
• “events attendance and sponsorship revenues, notably exhibitor fees
• “and revenues dependent on transaction volumes, notably of UK properties.”

‘Challenging advertising market’ hits DMGT

In total across DMGT, 28%, or £275m, of all revenues came from advertising (print and digital), down from 31% in 2022.

Some 11%, or £108m, of group revenues came from print advertising (down from 13%) while 36% came from print advertising and circulation together (down from 40%) and 16% from events (up from 10%).

Chairman Lord Rothermere, who took DMGT private at the end of 2021 after 90 years on the London Stock Exchange, said of the consumer media titles in the company's annual report: "Advertising prices were adversely affected by circulation volumes, which continued to decline as expected, as well as by a challenging advertising market, due to pressure on UK consumers’ real disposable income."

He added that revenue from sales of the Mail titles and i newspaper benefitted from cover price increases largely offsetting declining circulation volumes and that this "reflected an increased preference to subscribe to the titles". He alluded to "growth in print subscription revenues".

Lord Rothermere went on: "There was continued inflationary pressure on costs, with a notable increase in the price of newsprint, and increased investment in US-related editorial content.

"Consequently, given the reduction in advertising revenues, the profitability of the consumer media portfolio was adversely affected during the year and the adjusted operating margin reduced to 6% from 8%."

The consumer media division made a statutory pre-tax loss of £32.5m but an adjusted pre-tax profit of £39.4m.

In common with many media companies, DMGT made some job cuts as part of digital and seven-day restructuring in 2023.

The report said: "The board continued to review the consumer media businesses during the year. Matters considered included the impact on consumers of the increased cost of living, the long-term market conditions and the future outlook for business performance.

"It was decided that a restructuring of consumer media was necessary to reduce the operational cost base whilst also investing in US expansion to protect and enhance future revenue generation. Although the board sought to ensure that employee roles were relocated where possible, unfortunately a number of redundancies were necessary."

The consumer media division is the biggest at DMGT by headcount, making up 62% of the company. It had 2,608 employees on average in 2023 - down 1% from the previous year.

The total remuneration of DMGT's highest-paid director (unnamed but likely to be either Lord Rothermere or chief executive Tim Collier) was £6.5m, down from £8.4m in 2022.

More than three quarters (78%) of group revenues were made in the UK and 8% from North America. A year earlier the UK was higher on 84% but North America was the same, meaning a boost elsewhere in the world.

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Six months after it launched, many publishers continue to actively post on Threads despite the Meta-owned platform’s ambivalence to news.

Fellow X/Twitter rival Bluesky, which was launched in February by a group including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has not been nearly as widely adopted by the news industry.

Still invite-only, Bluesky hit three million accounts on Tuesday, having hit two million in mid-November.

Threads, which allowed users to quickly set up accounts from their existing Instagram profiles, claims to have 100 million monthly active users.

Which news publishers are on Threads and which are on Bluesky?

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said on Threads shortly after launch that, while “politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads… we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals”.

Nonetheless publishers continuing to publish on Threads several times a day include CNN, Metro, The Sun and The Guardian.

They were joined last month by European publishers such as Corriere della Sera, La Stampa and Le Figaro after Threads made changes to conform with EU data rules, allowing it to belatedly launch there.

Comparatively few news outlets use Bluesky. German titles Der Spiegel and the politics vertical of the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper were the only publications Press Gazette found which run active Bluesky accounts but not Threads accounts.

In contrast, 18 of the 40 publications Press Gazette checked were on Threads but not Bluesky.

But while far more news outlets are using Threads than Bluesky, several publishers appear to have abandoned Meta's platform. The Daily Mail, Channel 4 News and the Jewish Chronicle all previously used the site regularly but have since stopped posting.

The BBC had a number of sub-accounts, although not a main BBC News account, but most - such as the BBC Today Programme - have stopped publishing, with the exception of BBC Woman's Hour and BBC Sport.

Josh Kaplan, the Jewish Chronicle's head of digital, told Press Gazette that for a small team like his Threads was "not worth the effort basically".

He said: "With Twitter, I can automate feeds and make sure all our stories go out. And when they do, they generate conversation because influential people follow us and discuss our stories.

"On Threads, it became pretty clear pretty quick that not only was no one reading our stuff on there, no one cared about the conversations that were happening on it."

A handful of publishers are publishing to both Threads and Bluesky, among them the Financial Times, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Irish Times.

The FT in particular has become a major presence on Bluesky, with users frequently joking about the ubiquity of the business paper's journalists on the platform.

Last month the NYT's director of off-platform told Digiday: "We wouldn’t continue being on the platform and maintaining it every day if it wasn’t something that we thought was promising for the future but also currently delivering on the audience.”

Travis Lyles, The Washington Post's deputy director, social, off-platform curation told Press Gazette the publisher was on both platforms because "it’s always important to keep tabs on up-and-coming social media platforms so you can make the right decision for your newsroom and meet readers where they are.

"We currently have the largest account for a news publisher on Bluesky, and traffic from platforms like Bluesky and Threads continues to grow as users diversify their social media usage."

Lyles added that neither platform had yet become a major driver of traffic, and a technical challenge remained "the inability to schedule posts, creating more cumbersome workflows" on both Bluesky and Threads. But he said: "We’re seizing the opportunity to build The Post’s brand on the platforms and experiment with audiences and our content."

It may be easier for larger publishers to experiment than smaller ones like The Jewish Chronicle. Asked how many people staff the Post's presence on the two challenger platforms, Lyles said it has a dedicated social team of 13, "and we split the team in a way that allows us to focus efforts on established platforms, like Instagram, while also building in experimentation on emerging platforms". Three to four staff members rotate daily to work on the platform each day, he said.

But a few publishers aren't bothering with either network

For now actual returns from both platforms appear abstract. For example The New York Times and CNN, which have 2.7 million and 2.6 million followers on Threads respectively, rarely garner more than a few hundred likes on a post.

Perhaps because of this there are several major publishers who have not established themselves on either Bluesky or Threads. For example the UK's Daily Telegraph never made an account on either platform, and while Fox News set up a Threads account, it has never posted on it.

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DMGT‘s advertising business Mail Metro Media has claimed that it has enough data about its readers (3.5 terabytes) to be insulated from the expected end of publisher cookies on Google’s Chrome browser next year.

The advertiser upfront, which was attended by Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere and his son Vere Rothermere and featured sit-downs with celebrity couple Spencer Matthews and Vogue Williams, explained to potential clients how MMM’s ad infrastructure works – giving a unique look under the hood of the DMGT commercial operation.

Opening the showcase on Wednesday 11 October in Central London, MMM chief revenue officer Dominic Williams illustrated the company’s reach by noting that the publications it represents, which include Mail Online, Metro, the i and New Scientist, collectively saw 188 million article views on the day of the coronation of King Charles. (The Daily Telegraph’s print advertising sales are also overseen by MMM.)

Managing director for digital, Hannah Buitekant, said advertisers with MMM should “fear not” the forthcoming death of third-party cookies, touting the “unique advantage” offered by MMM’s “3.5 terabytes” of first-party data.

MMM’s ad targeting capability, Buitekant said, had delivered “over 270 million clicks to merchant landing pages” in the prior 12 months and sold “over £180m worth of products on Amazon alone”.

“Our commercial content, written by journalists, shows product recommendations have an average click through rate of 30%.”

Qualifying purchases made via Amazon affiliate links in the UK typically return a commission of between 7% and 12% of the purchase cost, suggesting that in the last year MMM generated at least £12m from Amazon ecommerce sales alone.

[Read more: Independent set to hit four million online registrations after pivot to first-party data collection]

How a reader gets sorted into a Mail Metro Media advertising category

Buitekant proceeded to walk the crowd through how MMM uses its first-party data to make its readers targetable for advertisers.

“The user visits Mail Online. From the homepage they read an article about Holly Willoughby resigning from her ITV show, This Morning. The user has a high dwell time over a picture of Holly wearing a dress – and by high dwell time, I mean they’re hovering [their cursor] or they’re static on a mobile phone screen.

“They click on an affiliate link that we cleverly put in there so that user could find out where the dress was from, landing on the merchant website. The user comes back to the Mail Online app, as they do multiple times every day, and consumes a high volume of celebrity news content.

“They click on embedded links connected to female, fashion, beauty and parenting. The user also visits our discount code channel, seeking online codes for Asos and Very.co.uk.

“These touch points are categorised as ‘events’, and combining events creates a profile that ties into a targetable segment – in this case, the profile is: female, loves high street brands, interested in beauty, high propensity to purchase. The segment is our female fashion shopper.

“This is just one example of a profile built from 150 billion data signals that we are harnessing and making available for targeting.”

Speaking after Buitekant, the company’s insight director Luke Hand told attendees about Dream, a new dashboard MMM has launched to allow advertising partners to make use of the company’s data.

Hand illustrated how Dream would work by describing how a cruise holiday advertiser might use the tool.

“When it comes to data, a client could access our trends-plus dashboard and browse the pre-existing demographic, intent and contextual audiences that we already have, or challenge us to build a bespoke cohort for them based on all those touchpoints Hannah [Buitekant] talked about tonight,” he said.

“When it comes to effectiveness, they could search the 500 campaigns that we have in our archive, and 15 that are specific for cruise, to identify the key creative themes that drove effectiveness… they could use our audience planning tool to quickly identify which of our 13 titles and platforms are the best fit for the cruise brand.

“And finally, when it comes to media, a client could access our work which shows how newsbrands can and have influenced every stage of the purchase funnel, from inspiration through to purchase itself.”

Editorial and commercial ‘closely aligned’

Later in the event DMG Media‘s head of podcasts Jamie East chaired a panel discussion that saw editorial representatives from the i, Metro and Mail Online discuss for the benefit of advertisers what goes on inside their newsrooms.

Among the topics was an advert Metro carried, which East said probably “wouldn’t have happened if the newsroom weren’t so closely aligned with commercial”.

Metro executive editor Richard Hartley-Parkinson held up the paper’s front page for 22 March, saying: “This is from when Boris Johnson admitted that he misled MPs over lockdown bashes, but only accidentally. And we went with: ‘Boris: They weren’t proper whoppers.’

Hartley-Parkinson continued: “This was sent up to commercial, and they saw the opportunity and got in touch with Burger King, who went with their advert [on the front page], which here in very small writing says: ‘Home of the proper Whopper.’

“And that was celebrated across the internet. Just that moment itself went viral. And it’s going to be used in marketing courses in the future.” (You can see the ad here.)

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There are “dangerous levels of concentrated ownership” in the UK media, according to a new report which seeks to answer the question ‘who owns the news?’.

The “Who Owns the UK Media?” 2023 report, published by the Media Reform Coalition at Goldsmiths University, found that three companies – DMG Media, News UK and Reach – control 90% of the UK’s national newspaper market.

The analysis found that while the combined average circulation of UK national dailies fell by 6% between 2020 and 2022, Metro, owned by DMG, has since the last report in March 2021 joined the Daily Mail and News UK’s The Sun as leading titles in the national newspaper market by circulation, with each accounting for around one-fifth of the share of total daily circulation.

Report author Tom Chivers used average ABC circulation figures for 2022 and for publishers which keep their ABC secret (The Sun, Guardian, Times and Telegraph titles) he estimated their likely circulation based on trends and company statements.

The data suggests that if DMG Media were to succeed in its expected bid to acquire Telegraph Media Group it would increase its print market share from 42% to 47%.

DMG Media’s share of the online news market is estimated at around 10% looking at just the top-50 UK newsbrands.

The same three publishers control over 40% of the audience reach of the UK’s top 50 online newsbrands according to the Media Reform Coalition's analysis of Ipsos iris data in Press Gazette’s monthly round-up.

Reach’s digital newsbrands accounted for more than a fifth of total online reach, which was only slightly less than the combined share of newsbrands in the top 50 not owned by broadcasters or major publishers.

Their dominance of print and online news, said the report, gave the three publishers "an unrivalled position for setting the news agenda".

Chivers, researcher at the Media Reform Coalition, said: "A free, independent and plural media is essential to the functioning of a healthy democracy. However, these findings show that the UK media is dominated by a tiny handful of corporate media moguls and ‘big tech’ tycoons."

"Across our newspapers, TV channels, radio stations and online platforms, these companies hold a dangerous level of power to dictate our national conversation and influence the political agenda to favour their own interests."

"We need urgent reform to end the decades of failed regulation and political inaction on concentrated media ownership. Ofcom, Parliament and government must act to break up the dominant media companies, regulate the tech companies that profit off of UK audiences, and create new ownership and funding models to support independent public interest journalism."

The top publishers also accounted for the bulk of revenue as News Corp, DMG Media and Reach together brought in almost 70% of national publishing revenue among the leading names.

Local news also highly concentrated

The report found that over 71% of the UK’s 1,189 local newspapers are also owned by just six companies with the two largest, Reach and Newsquest, each accounting for a fifth of the local press market.

Reach and Newsquest’s share was bigger than that of the combined share of titles owned by the smallest 173 local publishers.

This increasingly concentrated ownership, said the report, "is worsening the collapse of media diversity and public interest journalism across the UK media". The study noted pointed to the particularly "rapid consolidation of the news industry" at the local and regional level.

Analysis by Press Gazette earlier this year found that consolidation has increased sharply in the local press in the last five years.

The report acknowledged that while ongoing local print closures have been met by new title launches, many of these new launches concern titles that were relaunched after being previously shut down or were consolidations of smaller local editions. Reach and National World, said the report, accounted for over half of new digital launches, most of which were 'hub' websites such as Reach’s network of Live sites which serve larger areas.

Tech platforms dominate

When it comes to the tech platforms’ role as gatekeepers to news, the research found that ten of the top 15 online platforms used by UK audiences to access news were owned by Facebook owner Meta, Google parent Alphabet and Elon Musk’s X Corp which owns X (formerly known as Twitter). According to Ipsos and Ofcom, 64% of the UK public use such 'online intermediaries' to access news.

Their dominance - including of advertising spend - has "merely entrenched the market reach and influence of traditionally dominant newspapers and broadcasters" through their algorithms, the report said.

While they still account for the bulk of traffic, major publishers including Reach have however recently stated that changes to the Facebook algorithm have impacted their traffic.

In its half-year results for 2023 Reach said that changes by Facebook owner Meta had contributed in large part to a 16% drop in page views following its strategic decision to reduce the visibility of news on the platform. This trend has continued in Q3, Reach said this week, resulting in page views down 21% year-on-year for the first nine months of 2023.

Read the full Media Reform Coalition Who Owns the UK Media report for 2023.

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The Mail on Sunday and Metro titles have lost dozens of journalists as part of a cost-cutting exercise implemented by their publisher.

High-profile Mail on Sunday departures include news editor Ben Felsenburg, business editor Neil Craven, consumer affairs and technology editor Dan Jones and medical editor Stephen Adams. Acting features editor Paul Clements tweeted that he was leaving The Mail on Sunday on 22 April, adding that the newspaper’s features team was no more. Separately, Mail on Sunday deputy editor Maggie O’Riordan left the business shortly before the cuts began.

Several members of staff worked their final shifts on the newspaper in late April. City PR firm Monfort announced on Wednesday this week that it had appointed Craven as a senior consultant.

Metro’s cutbacks were completed earlier in the year. Senior journalists to have left the freesheet included editor Ted Young, who announced he was stepping down in January, deputy news editor Joel Taylor, news editor Sarah Getty, production boss Paul Hudson and head of features Sharon Lougher.

DMGT, which was taken private by Lord Rothermere in 2021, has not divulged any total figures internally or externally, and it is therefore unclear exactly how many roles have disappeared. Redundancies were certainly in double figures at both, with dozens of staff and regular freelances having left.

Some departing staff have estimated that as many as 30 roles may have disappeared from each title, but a well-placed source said these figures were inaccurate and too high. The Mail on Sunday previously had a workforce of around 90. A further unspecified number of jobs have been cut from the commercial side of the business.

In March, Ted Verity, the editor-in-chief of Mail Newspapers, told staff that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday would be brought “much closer together” and that this would result in redundancies, “while other staff may see a change in working pattern, job title, line manager or duties”.

Journalists at the group now often write for both the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Previously the titles operated as distinct editorial entities. Notably, in 2016, the Daily Mail (then led by Paul Dacre) backed Brexit, while The Mail on Sunday (then edited by Geordie Greig) supported Remain.

The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro have by far the largest audited print circulations on Fleet Street. The Sun, which previously held the top spot, no longer submits its figures to ABC. In March, the freesheet Metro had an average circulation of 952,424. The Daily Mail’s average circulation was 777,586, down 11% on March 2022, and The Mail on Sunday’s was 659,454, down 12%.

Alongside the daily and Sunday newspapers, the Mail also operates Mail Online, one of the world’s largest free English-language news websites, and Mail Plus, a multimedia service that claims more than 150,000 paid subscribers.

DMGT declined to comment.

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