February circulation figures favour the Indy at Guardian's expense

by Daniel Farey-Jones

March 11, 2005

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February circulation figures favour the Indy at Guardian's expense

LONDON – The Independent defied the downward pressure on newspaper sales with a 2.53% rise in February seemingly at the expense of The Guardian, which lost more than 10,000 sales.

The Independent added more than 6,000 copies to reach 263,595 and is still feeling the positive effects of its compact conversion with a 9.35% rise year-on-year.

Its performance contrasts with that of The Guardian, which lost 2.7% to hit 366,645. Media buyers have recently been making noises about uncertainty over the timing of The Guardian's switch to the Berliner format, suggesting the paper is looking at bringing forward its introduction lest its circulation decline any further.

The Indy's fellow compact The Times lost 1.04% to 679,190, but again came out ahead in its battle with The Telegraph, which dipped 1.46% to 907,329.

The Financial Times continued its gentle decline with another small drop of 0.74% to 419,386.

The Sun was the hardest hit in a tough month for the tabloids. It was down 3.23% to 3,273,116 while the Daily Mirror sank back 1.63% to 1,719,743. Year on year, The Mirror is down 8.86% while The Sun is only down 3.73%.

The Daily Mail climbed slightly to 2,426,533 with an increase of 0.72% while its Daily Express rival hardly moved, losing only 0.09% to 948,375.

Scottish titles The Herald and The Scotsman slipped, the former by 1.3% to 79,230 and the latter by 2.78% to 67,832.

Among the Sundays, the Sunday Mirror was hit hard. It was down by a whopping 7.12% to 1,534,736. The Daily Star Sunday had it worse, down 8.84% to 419,262. The News of the World was down by 4.55% to 3,649,466.

However, there was better news for Richard Desmond. He had the double satisfaction of seeing the Sunday Express climb back over a million copies as The Mail on Sunday hiccupped, losing 2.93% to 2,374,856. The Sunday Express was up by 3.18% to 1,007,095.

The Sunday Telegraph took a small hit, going down by 0.77% to 686,779, but Telegraph Group bosses will not be pleased to see The Sunday Times up by 1.81% to reach the mini-milestone of 1,400,873.

The weekday fortunes of Independent News & Media and Guardian Media Group were mirrored by their Sunday titles. The Independent on Sunday was up 0.99% to 208,563 while The Observer lost 0.52% to 444,509.

In London, Associated Newspapers saw the Evening Standard shed 1.4% to 345,776, putting exactly down 10% year on year, two-and-a-half months after the launch of its free Standard Lite edition.

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