Six national daily titles suffered sizeable falls in readership over 12 months up to June, according to the latest set of figures from the National Readership Survey (NRS).
Compared to the same period the year before, The Independent lost 26% of its daily audience. The other five losers, in descending order, were the Daily Star (-16%), The Guardian and Daily Express (-14%), Daily Mirror (-13%) and The Sun (-11%).
NRS also regards the 6% drop in readership for the free daily, Metro, as statistically significant.
Only one national title, the Financial Times, increased its audience, recording a 2% rise. The London Evening Standard, which is given away free in the capital, saw its readership increase by a further 72,000 a day, up 5%.
Sunday nationals suffered even worse declines. The Sunday People's year-on-year decline was 37%, a loss of 532,000 readers, while its stablemate, the Sunday Mirror lost 1.14m, a 29% fall.
A rival red-top, the Daily Star Sunday, lost 24% while its stablemate, the Sunday Express, was down by 22%.
NRS also regards the 6% loss of readership by the Mail on Sunday (285,000 readers) as statistically significant but does not view The Observer's 10% loss in the same light.
Several women's weekly magazines saw their audiences fall away by significant amounts. NRS regards 16 titles as suffering from significant losses. They include OK! (-20%) Hello! (-19%), Heat (-22%), Best (-18%), Look (-20%), Love It! (-33%), My Weekly (-29%), Women's Own (-16%) and Closer (-12%).
Among the monthlies, Cosmopolitan shed 202,000 readers, 13% down on the year before, while Prima was down by 20% and Mother & Baby fell by 24%.
NB: It is always important to state that the NRS statistics are estimates obtained by a continuous survey based on interviews with a representative sample of 36,000 adults.
