Newspaper ABCs: Will and Kate mania fails to halt dailies' decline

The Daily Mail was the only daily title to avoid a year-on-year circulation drop in the April newspaper ABCs, as the market fell 4% despite the potential circulation boost of the Royal Wedding.

Daily Mail: only daily title to avoid a year-on-year circulation decline in April
Daily Mail: only daily title to avoid a year-on-year circulation decline in April

The Mail's circulation rose 0.2% on the April 2010 figure, to an average of 2,100,300 copies, while the worst performer was the Daily Star, down 15.9% to 692,157 copies.

The data covers the period from Monday 4 April to Sunday 1 May, so includes issues published on Saturday 30 April, the day after the wedding.

However, every publisher chose not to include sales on the day of the wedding in their average copy sales figure.

Allowed to exercise the option not to report bank holiday data, most also excluded the two Easter bank holidays the week before. In April 2010, all but the Racing Post excluded one bank holiday.

The Sun fell 5.9% year on year, and 1.2% from March, to 2,783,110 copies.

In a statement trumpeting its performance, the Mail claimed to have outsold The Sun on Saturday 16 April, going by its own estimated figures. Thanks to its 'A Century of Royal Weddings' DVD it believes it sold 3,083,000 copies to 3,078,000 copies for The Sun (which did not have a promotion that day).

Aside from the Daily Star, the tabloids proved more resilient than the broadsheets this month.

The big strugglers were The Times, down 11.3% year on year to 449,809 copies, and The Guardian, down 8.7% to 263,907 copies, although both were up month on month.

The Independent was down 3.9% year on year to 180,743, while its sister paper i was down 6% month on month to 161,151 (i started ABC reporting in January this year).

The Daily Telegraph, which did not count the special evening edition it published on the day of the wedding, fell 6.4% year on year to 639,578.

Trinity Mirror's flagship Daily Mirror fell 5.4% year on year to 1,172,785 copies, while Richard Desmond's Daily Express dropped 4.5% to 635,576.

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