The Audit Bureau of Circulation today released audited March circulation figures for national newspapers.
The statistics stated that the Sun on Sunday averaged 2.43 million copies in first full month since launch.
The figures in the searchable database below.
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The Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) report for September was released yesterday, outlining the latest figures for unique visitors to the UK’s national newspaper websites.
The biggest month-on-month increase in average daily browsers was recorded by Independent.co.uk with 12.86 per cent, while guardian.co.uk saw the number of its browsers pass the two million mark with a 4.99 per cent increase.
The Mail Online again recorded the highest daily and monthly average browsers, increasing for the ninth month.
The full figures for the four audited titles and Mirror Group’s websites are listed below. The percentage in brackets indicates the month-on-month change compared with August’s ABCe report.
Mail Online
Average daily unique browsers: 2,670,371 (+4.62 per cent)
Monthly unique browsers: 46,910,754 (+3.01 per cent)
Guardian.co.uk
Average daily unique browsers: 2,038,493 (+4.99 per cent)
Monthly unique browsers: 35,975,755 (+2.88 per cent)
Telegraph.co.uk
Average daily unique browsers: 1,669,773 (-0.68 per cent)
Monthly unique browsers: 32,007,189 (-1.05 per cent)
Mirror Group
Average daily unique browsers: 525,914 (+5.26 per cent)
Monthly unique browsers: 11,277,113 (+7.03 per cent)
Independent.co.uk
Average daily unique browsers: 553,593 (+12.86 per cent)
Monthly unique browsers: 12,029,545 (+11.49 per cent)
TheSun.co.uk
No data available
Times.co.uk
No data available
Drops in consumer magazine circulations appear to be improving according to a report by PaidContent on the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ Fas-Fax report today.
The downward trajectory of consumer magazine circulation appears to have slowed in the first half of the year. While publishers weren’t able to muster the slightly positive growth that ad pages have had lately—the Publishers Information Bureau recorded its first increase in ad pages and rates after two negative years last month—but as mags rely more on paid circ to pay the bills, these numbers are becoming more crucial. So far, paid circ is becoming more stable, but newsstand sales are struggling much harder.
According to the report, total paid and verified circulations for the first six months of this year still saw a decrease of 2.27 per cent on the same period last year.
In the same month that it launched its own metric for measuring readers across print, online and other media, the Financial Times has officially withdrawn from the monthly audit of UK newspapers’ web traffic conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe). It’s been some time since the FT website’s figures were included in the monthly stats – listed as N/A below a print circulation figure in the monthly multi-platform reports issued by the auditor.
Says a spokesperson:
The FT no longer participates in ABCes as volume traffic measures have become less relevant to our advertisers and clients. We do not intend to compete on volume, rather the quality of our registered and subscriber readership.
I’ve had a little play with today’s Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s (ABCe) six-monthly multi-platform report for July – December 2009 and produced a few graphs.
Johnston Press was top of the traffic charts with 384,016 daily unique browsers – partly thanks to the Scotsman which attracted 86,694 daily browsers on average over the past six months. In second place for daily unique browsers (which ABCe now prioritises over monthly statistics as a better measure of site popularity) came Newsquest with 320,975 browsers. Closely behind, Trinity Mirror, which recorded 287,130. Of the bigger groups, it was Northcliffe in fourth position with 256,123. GMG saw the biggest drop-off overall when period-on-period monthly unique browser figures were compared: -17.8 per cent.
For the next multiplatform report, it could be all change: GMG regional titles will be part of Trinity Mirror, following the sale agreement earlier this month; and the effect of Johnston Press’ pay walls, launched in November may well have kicked in. They seem to have had a limited effect on this period’s statistics, but it’s worth noting that traffic had fallen for the Johnston Press network from 6,985,175 uniques in October to 6,161,875 in December 2009: down by over ten per cent in two months. Traffic had been dropping off since July, however, well before the pay walls were introduced and of course, the group has only rolled out the scheme over a few of its smaller sites so far. Unfortunately, the trialled sites don’t feature in the individual site break-down.
This chart shows the period-on-period change for each newspaper group, July to end of December 2009. (ie. compared with the previous six months)
Unique daily browsers, by regional newspaper group:
GMG Regional Network
Trinity Mirror
Iliffe News & Media Ltd (note that the largest column is its entire network overall, which includes other sites as well)
Johnston Press
Newsquest
Midlands News
How will website traffic measurement be affected by the introduction of pay walls? Suzanne Bearne considers the impact on UK newspaper websites audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe).
Subscription sales are up according to figures from online magazine retailer The Magazine Group, which runs sites for WH Smith, Books Direct and others; while last week the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reported only a slight drop in overall magazine sales.
But individual titles have seen circulations plummet this. Do subscriptions offer a way to avoid such a loss in sales? Here, we examine the results of the two reports:
Last week’s report from The Magazine Group suggests subscription sales are on the up after analysing figures for the more than 800 titles from 140 publishers it offers. The findings are derived from more than 100,000 subscriptions sold by the group – comparing purchasing patterns from the first half of 2008 with those for the same period this year.
Meanwhile overall ABC results for January to June 2009 suggested that magazine circulation for the UK consumer magazine market is only 1.9 per cent down on the previous period.
But individual titles fared worse in last weeks ABCs: results suggested that most glossy magazines have lost sales (one of the worst hit has been FHM down 16.2 per cent). There are exceptions – such Men’s Health (up 2.1 per cent YOY), which has taken FHM’s place as top selling title.
According to the Magazine Group’s report, women’s glossies are also suffering with the biggest fall in subscriptions amongst the retailer’s titles. The ABC results show that overall sales for women’s weeklies are down 4.6 per cent year-on-year.
In contrast celebrity weeklies are doing well in subscriptions for the Magazine Group, which claimed that magazines with competitive prices were faring the best.
The public’s concerns and interest in the recession are reflected in the ABC report by the general increase in sales for news and business magazines compared with other sectors – MoneyWeek (which has subscribers making up 96 per cent of readers, according to MediaGuardian) was up 15.3 per cent year-on-year, while the Week gained 10.3 per cent in sales.
Up 0.6 per cent year-on-year, Private Eye remains the biggest-selling title in the news and finance business sector.
According to The Magazine Group, TV, computer games and music magazines are also doing well – it seems that more people are trying to save money by staying in.
Speaking at the FIPP congress earlier this year, leading magazine publishers suggested that personalisation may be a key factor for future magazine revenue streams. This sentiment is reflected in the Magazine Group’s report, as specialist magazines are shown to be doing well. The figures suggested an increase of more than 20 per cent in the sales of home improvement, craft and gardening titles.
But, it may simply come down to money-saving to explain the drop in glossies, but rise in such specialist titles. Economising Brits seem to be fighting the recession by trying to make their money go further. Not surprisingly, the ABC report suggests that specialist titles such as house renovation and housing have fallen in circulation, as have health and beauty magazines.
“What these figures (The Magazine Group) show is that magazine consumers are looking for value. Titles that offer ways to combat the credit crunch are thriving,” says Don Brown of The Magazine Group in a release.
“With sales falling on the newsstand many magazines are having a tough time, but with big name brands offering discounts and free gifts, savvy subscribers have great choice of bargains.”
The magazine Group claims to generally have a rise in their subscriptions, compared to many falls in the ABC analysis on individual title’s sales. Does this suggest that subscription deals might be able to save/maintain some magazines?
Journalism.co.uk is interested in all things online, so the print stats from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) are a bit off-patch, but just a quick heads-up that the body is continuing to investigate claims about ‘bulk newspaper sales’ and the number of airline copies included in the audit.
“ABC stated in the February and March National Newspaper reports, that airline copies were subject to further verification. This verification work continues, along with verification of the April data, and is being progressed as quickly as possible, in line with ABC’s usual processes.”
The Guardian reported in March 2009:
“It is believed that the problem came to light after ABC carried out a spot check on multiple sales copies sent to airlines. According to one senior newspaper executive, the checkers found a wide disparity between the claimed distribution figure and the reality. Other aspects of bulks sales are not believed to be affected.”
NB: The ABC has a new website in beta, which can be viewed here: http://preview.abc.org.uk/
Guardian News and Media (GNM) has become the second publisher to officially sign up for the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s (ABCe) six-monthly web traffic audits, according to a release from the bureau.
The new audits will provide detailed daily, weekly and monthly breakdowns of unique user/browser and page impression figures for sites within GNM’s regional portfolio, which have previously reported web traffic stats on an ‘ad hoc’ basis.
Regional GNM sites getreading.co.uk, manchestereveningnews.co.uk and manchesteronline.co.uk , as well as thejobsmine.co.uk will be analysed as part of the new arrangement.
Online traffic data will be presented alongside print circulation figures for the titles, the bureau added.
GNM follows Northcliffe Media, which signed up 10 of its regional websites for the new certificate earlier this month.
In a press statement accompanying the announcement, Northcliffe said it plans to increase the audit to 20 sites by 2009, and to cover ‘all major urban and regional sites’ in the future.
In a follow up to Tuesday’s announcement that the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) will provide user profiles alongside stats on page impressions and unique users, Guy Lipscombe, managing director of Survey Interactive – the firm behind the on-site surveys being used for the research – explained how the ‘enhanced ABCe certificates’ would work at yesterday’s Regional Media Research Forum (RMRF) event:
[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/GuyLipscombe.mp3]Lipscombe was joined by Sally O’Donnell, strategic marketing manager for Trinity Mirror Regionals (TMR), who let us in on some key findings from Survey Interactive’s audience research with the group, which involved on-site questionnaires completed by 53,313 interviewees across TM’s 110 regional and national websites:
According to O’Donnell, further research will be conducted soon, as the group’s digital audience continues to grow. Sales staff training on how best to use the figures collected by the research will also be implemented – with particular attention paid to the difference between stats for ‘adults’ and ‘unique users’ to the sites and how behaviour differs amongst print and online consumers.