Last year Rupert Murdoch planned to put a paywall on his newspapers’ websites because he claimed that quality information cost a lot of money to produce and the era of free online newspapers is over.
What Mr Murdoch meant when he talked of quality information is unclear but what is clear, is that the introduction of a paywall gambit, to defend print circulations, isn’t working, as new circulation figures suggest.
The Times and Sunday Times became the first UK national newspapers to go completely behind paywalls in June this year.
Circulation decline at both titles was in line with the rest of the market in September, new figures released by ABC reveal.
Sales for The Times dropped 14.8 per cent to year on year to 486,868 and at the Sunday Times circulation fell by 9.5 per cent to 1,091,869.
The only circulation riser among the national titles was the Daily Star, currently on sale for just 10p in many areas. It rose 0.09 per cent to 864,315.
The biggest faller among the dailies was the Telegraph, down 17.8 per cent year on year to 659,650. The Observer was the biggest faller among the Sundays, down 15.6 per cent to 325,502.
Year on year circulation decline at the quality end of the market has been worsened by a decision to drop many foreign sales and bulk copies which had been inflating sales figures.
National newspaper print circulation for September (source ABC)
Average daily sale, and percentage change year on year.
National dailies:
Daily Mirror ; 1,213,323 ; -7.12
Daily Record ; 323,974 ; -5.02
Daily Star ; 864,315 ; 0.09
The Sun ; 2,974,405 ; -3.41
Daily Express ; 659,650 ; -7.36
Daily Mail ; 2,144,229 ; -0.73
The Daily Telegraph ; 659,445 ; -17.75
Financial Times ; 390,228 ; -4.48
The Herald ; 53,348 ; -6.46
The Guardian ; 278,129 ; -11.69
The Independent ; 182,776 ; -1.99
The Scotsman ; 43,435 ; -8.68
The Times ; 486,868 ; -14.81
Racing Post ; 53,974 ; -7.22
National Sundays
Daily Star Sunday ; 371,457 ; -3.41
News of the World ; 2,948,328 ; -5.78
Sunday Mail ; 388,980 ; -6.02
Sunday Mirror ; 1,126,053 ; -7.83
The People ; 532,420 ; -5.58
Sunday Express ; 560,273 ; -9.49
Sunday Post ; 323,183 ; -7.72
The Mail on Sunday ; 1,969,990 ; -2.12
Independent on Sunday ; 155,174 ; -0.80
The Observer ; 325,502 ; -15.59
Scotland on Sunday ; 55,949 ; -5.95
Sunday Herald ; 42,817 ; -0.05
The Sunday Telegraph ; 507,860 ; -15.27
The Sunday Times ; 1,091,869 ; -9.55
The decline in circulation of the Daily Telegraph should be music to the ears of nationalists.
This is the same newspaper that called BNP supporters useless idiots and used negative and offensive terms to describe Tess Culnane, a lifelong nationalist.
Let’s hope this fall in circulation continues until all the useless journalists lose their jobs and pay the price for their arrogance.
GIUSEPPE DE SANTIS
It's good to see the Mirror circulation going downwards, it has never been anything more than a joke.
Excellent news. Long may it continue. I can read most of them (if I want to) on line or in my local library.
apparently the Independent launched a new newspaper called "I" for 20p.It may be interesting if this cheap rag will further reduce the circulation of other newspapers
Nice to see the Guardian with such low sales! Considering that it contains a daily job section you do have to wonder, especially in an economic time like this, how many of that pitiful number actually buy it solely for the job section rather than reading it! In other words its actual readership is even lower.
I think it's because our People are slowly but surely waking up to our nation's problems. Although most papers parrot the same PC mantras, they can't exactly conceal our nation's tragedies, however much they spin and cherry-pick the stories at times.
People used to buy more papers yet not really take in the bad news, preferring instead to obsess over the trivia regarding our latest media-created 'celebrities'. Now people are becoming aware of the bad news, why it happens and how. Willful ignorance has finally given way to acceptance, though there is still the denial.
And whilst papers like the Express may tell more of the brutal truth about the immigration flood or the EU tyranny, they still offer no solutions to the problems they always talk about in their editorials. As such, people are always left frustrated, particularly when a real alternative like the BNP is also smeared and denigrated.
I give it just 10 or 20 more years for the dam of British Reserve to finally break and for the old gang parties to be washed away with their constant treason. But Britain's running on borrowed time as it is, so it's a real nail-biter of a moment at the Eleventh Hour of our history.