The figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) showed that The Independent’s circulation shrank from 119,551 to 78,082 between December 2011 and December 2012 although its month-on-month decline was just 1.25% compared to that of i which saw circulation drop by 3.66% from November to December 2012.
The Financial Times' circulation decreased by 14% year-on-year but saw a modest month-on-month increase of 1.6%. The Guardian and Telegraph followed a similar patter with year-on-year declines of 11.3% and 6.8% respectively while monthly circulation figures remained stable with modest gains of 0.3% and 0.2% respectively. The Telegraph remained the most popular of the ‘quality morning’ papers with a circulation of 547,465 followed by The Times with 396,041.
Meanwhile among the tabloids The Daily Mirror fared the best recording just a 0.9% month-on-month decline and a 5.3% decrease in comparison to December 2011. The sharpest year-on-year decline was seen by The Daily Star with circulation falling from 616, 498 to 540,548, a decline of 12%.
The Sun continued to dominate the tabloid market with circulation at 2.28m although this was down 10% on December 2011.
Circulation among the Sunday papers revealed starker figures with The Sunday People, The Daily Star and The Sunday Mirror recording steep year-on-year declines of 45%, 44% and 40% respectively. The latter however saw the smallest drop-off between November and December 2012 of just 1.2%
Average month-on-month circlation decline among the quality Sunday papers was fairly modest at 1.8% with The Sunday Times remaining the market leader with a circulation of 877,482.
