The London newspaper reported an average issue readership of 608,000 in the year to the end of June 2009, equating to a 2% drop year on year.
However, the last six months under Lebedev has seen the title begin to turn its fortunes around, with a 3% lift on the second half of 2008, to average 620,000.
The improvement follows the newspaper increasing its headline circulation by 12% month on month, from 210,901 to 236,075 in June.
Rival free newspapers, Associated's London Lite and New International's soon to be defunct thelondonpaper, both saw readership rocket during the same period, up 11% and 14% respectively.
But the newspaper read by most people visiting the capital continues to be DMGT's free Metro, which reported a 13% increase in national readers to 3,531,000.
It marks the first time Metro has achieved a readership of more than 3.5 million and managing director Steve Auckland said he was "delighted" with the findings.
He added: "These figures continue to demonstrate Metro’s popularity with young urbanites throughout the UK, offering advertisers unrivalled access to the most valuable, hard to reach, and responsive audience in the market."
Despite its record reach, the management at Metro are currently in the process of making a series of redundancies a source has confirmed, with an official announcement expected later today.
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