The ABC’s national newspaper circulation report revealed that all Sunday newspapers saw a decline in circulation during the period from June to November 2012, compared with the same time last year. Sunday People suffered most with a 40% year-on-year decline.

However, The Sun on Sunday, launched in February this year, contributed 2.1m copies, boosting the combined circulation of national Sunday popular titles by 26% year-on-year, from 3.5m in 2011 to 4.4m in 2012. This in turn resulted in a 3.32% annual growth for Sunday titles overall. It did however, also see a month-on-month decline of 1.4% from 2m copies.

The income from the 50p title will be good news for parent company News Corporation, who posted a $1.6bn first quarter loss for 2012 due to the escalating cost of the News of The World scandal, which closed in July 2011.

National morning newspaper i reported a 48% year-on-year increase in circulation, which was in sharp contrast to parent title The Independent, which saw its circulation slashed by 50% over the period. This helped to bring down the national morning quality newspaper sectors’ figures by 8% despite i’s doubled distribution.

The boost in national Sunday popular newspaper circulation did not manage to offset the broader declining daily newspaper market, which decreased by 8.61% decrease on last year’s figures. National morning popular newspapers were hit most severely with a drop of just under 480,000 copes circulating daily compared to the same four month period in 2011.


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