Richard Desmond continues to show that he could be considered a British Rupert Murdoch as his previously struggling the Daily Star recorded a massive 18.7% increase to 870,457 compared with the previous month. However, the growth followed a cover price drop to 20p.

In direct competition with the UK's bestselling newspaper the Sun, owned 'by Murdochs News International, the Daily Star has faced a difficult couple of years.

But its current approach appears to be working, with the Sun set to match its price across the UK; previously the Sun could be bought for 20p in London.

For the first time, June's figures also officially include numbers for copies of newspapers handed out on flights following a campaign by publishers.

Titles such as The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Financial Times will no longer have an asterisk next to their name on ABC auditing figures from June's results onwards, which indicated that the numbers were 'publishers' estimates'.

Elsewhere Alexander Lebedev's Evening Standard disappeared from the list, following a successful bid to reclassify the paper as a regional.

The Evening Standard has argued, since its take over by Lebedev, that the ABC figures don't give a true reflection of the newspaper's circulation.

But switching to a regional title, the figures are, to an extent, hidden. Regional figures are usually reported by ABC on a half-yearly basis.