According to the figures released today, June brought a steep 6% fall in circulation for The Independent while middle-England favourite the Daily Mail also struggled.
The Independent recorded a 6.05% drop in circulation to 241,660 copies in June from 257,226 copies during May, contributing to the 1.37% overall fall for the quality daily titles.
The Daily Telegraph escaped a major drop with just a 0.01% decrease to 900,158 from 900,236 copies, while The Guardian also got off lightly, down just 0.26% to 380,211 from 381,118 the previous month.
However, the Financial Times lost 2.34%, down to 440,598 from 451,153 and The Times was down 1.01% to 656,862 copies from 663, 543 copies in May.
In contrast tabloid sales held up in a month where they were able to feed off World Cup excitement although, like the England team, publishers were perhaps hoping for more success.
The Sun was virtually unchanged at 3,148,700 and the Daily Mirror was up 0.11% to 1,635,843. The Daily Star was the real winner with a 2.24% increase to 803,475 from 785,850 during May.
In the mid market the Daily Express was down just 0.06% to 844,729 but the Daily Mail sank 2.09% to 2,340,255.
Among regional papers Associated Newspapers' Evening Standard fell a substantial 9.38% to 309,908 following a redesign. Its April circulation was 315,800 before the redesign on May 2 helped that month's circulation climb to 341,983.
As expected, there was no June figure for The Sportsman, the troubled daily gambling newspaper that launched in March, and is selling far below its 40,000 target.
The Sportsman has decided not to publish a June ABC because of inconsistencies resulting from its change of distributors, but has said its circulation will be around 23,500.
Rival publication the Racing Post notched up a 0.58% increase to 76,112 copies.
The national Sunday press mirrored the dailies with an overall slide in the market, with only the Daily Star Sunday, the Observer and the Sunday Express making any noteworthy gains on last month's figures.
The Daily Star Sunday led the way, up 3.88% to 406,241, with the Observer climbing 2.13% to 470,762 and the Sunday Express, which improved by 2.56% to 830,006.
The Sunday Times was the only other newspaper to gain on May's figures, rising 0.86% to 1,314,090.
It was bad news of varying degrees for the rest of the national Sunday market, with the Independent on Sunday falling 7.54% to 210,207.
Many other Sunday titles experienced a lesser slide, however, with The People down 2.06% to 821,116, The Sunday Telegraph falling 2.89% to 645,431, and the Sunday Mirror dropping 2.27% to 1,416,703.
The News of the World also returned a fall of 1.26% to 3,471,415, but still remains by far the most popular Sunday title, behind the Mail on Sunday, which dropped 1.09% to 2,316,138.
The results for the Sundays indicate that the World Cup failed to return a sales boost, despite nearly all of the titles dedicating expansive front and back page coverage to the tournament.
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