According to a report at the weekend, News Group Newspapers, the division of News International that oversees The Sun and the News of the World, has discovered that about 90,000 readers a day were looking at the rather than buying the newspaper.
The fear of cannibalisation of newspapers by their online products is one that has posed a conundrum for publishers, but The Sun is first newspaper to cut back -- other than Express Newspapers, which has no websites for its Daily Star and Daily Express titles.
The Observer reported yesterday that Page 3 was one of the areas likely to disappear from the Sun's website, and that most of the editorial will be cut back to only show story samples, to encourage people to go out and buy the newspaper.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported last week that the circulation for The Sun over the three months ending August 2004 was 3.36m, compared with 3.52m for the same period in 2003, representing a fall of 4.8%. However, it still sells almost 1m copies more than its nearest national daily, the Daily Mail, at 2.41m copies.
The circulation at the News of the World was down by just over 2% for the same period to 3.78m copies.
The News Group Newspapers digital division, headed by Mark Maydon, was not available for comment at the time of writing.
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