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Figures for 2002 showed an 11 per cent growth in the door-to-door market to £677 million, up from £609 million in 2001.

"Door-drops are very accountable - and the sexiness of advertising in a market like this is less relevant," said Mark Young, managing director of The Leaflet Company and chair of the DMA's Door to Door Council. He added: "We've taken a lot of money from press advertising."

Inserts, too, had a good year, with extrapolated results from the DMA sample of media owners giving a figure of 22.89 billion inserts for 2002, with a total estimated value of £1.145 billion.

This is a dramatic rise from 2001's figure of £545 million, but reflects a change in the way the figures have been calculated. The sample was thought to make up 40 per cent of the market; this has been revised to 24 per cent.

The full Census will be published on 10 July.