A report in The Business says that on Sunday March 30 sales of Sunday newspapers fell from 12.9m the week before to 12.4m. The Sunday Mirror was down by 4.9% to 1.5m; the Mail on Sunday dropped 3% to 2.2m; and the Sunday Times was down 4.2% to 1.34m.
The daily market has also seen sales fall since the conflict began, dropping by 0.7%. This is in contrast to the last Gulf War, where circulation among the broadsheets rose. However, the 1991 war was before 24-hour news services such as CNN had achieved such high levels of penetration and before the advent of the worldwide web.
There have been falls almost across the board among national newspaper circulations, with the exception of the Daily Star, the one newspaper that has paid little attention to the events in Iraq. It has seen average daily sales rise slightly to 838,000.
At the troubled Daily Mirror, circulation is reported to be down below 2m; The Guardian is selling 12,000 fewer copies, a loss of 2.8%; while the struggling Independent saw a fall of 1.7%.
Rupert Murdoch's newspapers have met with different reactions. The Sun, which has strongly backed the war and British troops, has seen its circulation remain steady at 3.5m, with other reports saying that it has put on 100,000 copies, but News International stablemate The Times has seen circulation fall by 1.8% to 659,000.
The Daily Mail is down by 1.1% and The Daily Telegraph has dropped just 0.3% to 930,000.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)