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Only four of the top 19 paid-for regional morning titles posted year on year increases, with the Yorkshire Post seeing a slump of almost 9% to just over 50,000 copies per issue for its Monday to Friday edition.

The Trinity Mirror-owned Western Mail outperformed the rest of the morning market with a 4.1% year on year increase to almost 43,000 copies.

The evening sector has also been particularly badly affected by a general downturn in the regional market as only two of the top 20 titles – the re-launched Belfast Telegraph and the Newcastle Chronicle, also owned by Trinity Mirror - increased sales during the same period.

The Birmingham Evening Mail saw sales fall by almost 10% year-on-year to 94,000 and the Yorkshire Evening Post also slid by 8.5% to around 69,000 copies for their Monday to Friday editions.

The once strong performing weekly newspaper market has also taken a battering in the latest set of sales, released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Two of the top 20 weekly paid-for titles – Isle of Wight County Press and Rotherham & South Yorkshire Advertiser – increased sales, but some key titles have seen a downturn in fortunes.

The Kent Messenger saw sales fall by 2.5% to 58,000 copies and the Essex Chronicle posted the highest decrease in the top 10 list with a fall of 4.4% to 43,000.

Lynne Anderson, communications director of the Newspaper Society, which represents the commercial interests of the regional press, admitted: “These figures come at a difficult time, with regional and local newspapers subject to the same market forces as other consumer products and media.

“Despite this, a number of regional newspapers have seen some very impressive results due to investment, audience research and focusing on what their readers want.

“It is particularly encouraging to see successes among the large metropolitan dailies.”

One media agency has been quick to leap to the defence of the regional press, claiming sales figures often obscure the actual reach of particular titles.

Fiona Hodges, account director at Mindshare, said: “I don't think that circulation data always does justice to a publication and sometimes you need to see the readership data in order to gain a true picture.

“Sometimes a publication will be low circulating with very high readership. I don't think you can use circulation data on its own.”

for regional newspaper data tables, courtesy of the Newspaper Society.

By Kevin May