Historical note: Readers of the posting immediately below this will have noted that I did not say that The Sun had overtaken the News of the World for the first time in the papers' respective histories.
I stopped short of making that claim because I was away from my circulations archive and dimly recalled that in the distant past - during my own time at The Sun in fact - the daily had once surpassed the Sunday.
Now I've had a chance to consult my records I find that that was the case. In the final six months of 1983, The Sun's average sale was 4,179,079 while the News of the World's was 4,037,873. The NoW, under the editorship of Derek Jameson, was still a broadsheet at the time. Jameson pleaded with Rupert Murdoch to take the paper tabloid.
Murdoch finally agreed to the change in format. But he fired Jameson and instead gave the task of transformation to Nick Lloyd. So, in May 1984, the NoW became a red-top and its sales took off, sweeping majestically past The Sun once again to become Britain's best-selling title for the next 24 years.
I would guess that The Sun and the News of the World are going to be swapping the number one position over the coming months, though Rebekah Wade's daily looks more likely to emerge the eventual winner.
Well, until it's overtaken by the Daily Mail, of course, some time in 2010.
