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The NRS estimated that London Lite had an average readership of 745,000 in the six months to June - ahead of thelondonpaper on 713,000.

The advantage came despite ABC figures for August showing that London Lite publishes fewer copies than thelondonpaper - 398,220 as opposed to 486,165.

This prompted thelondonpaper's advertising director, Michael Craig, to say that the paper had "no interest" in competing with London Lite, and would now use its young, affluent readership and its bigger circulation to lure advertisers from the Lite's paid-for Associated Newspaper's stablemate, the Evening Standard.

According to thelondonpaper, the NRS revealed that 44% of its readers were under 35 and in the ABC1 category, compared to 42% of Lite's readers and 25% of the Standard's.

The Evening Standard was also only just ahead in the overall ABC1 category - 75% compared to 74% for thelondonpaper.

However, London Lite questioned the claim on the grounds that the NRS has yet to publish this part of its results.

The Evening Standard is 13% down year on year in the six months to June, the NRS found, with 103,000 fewer readers.

But a spokesman for the newspaper said figures had increased by 4.4% compared with figures for October to March, which proved that the audience was stabilising.

She added that thelondonpaper was "kidding itself" if it thought its rival was not London Lite.

Thelondonpaper's Craig also criticised the NRS report, highlighting that the figures were based on verbal responses and that the actual readership for both papers could be plus or minus 112,000.

NRS managing director Roger Pratt said the figures were based on adequate sample sizes and that every paper had to take into account a margin for error.

According to the NRS, The Sun is still the country's best-read paper, with an estimated daily readership of 7.9 million, placing it well ahead of the Daily Mail (5.1 million) and the Daily Mirror (3.8 million).

The Daily Star increased its readership by 19% to 1.8 million over the period, and morning freesheet Metro also gained nearly half a million readers, which represents a 31% boost.

The Daily Telegraph posted an increase of 37,000 readers for the period (2%), thanks to a growing male readership.

The NRS survey, released last Thursday, was conducted between January and June 2007 and involved 36,000 UK adults.