In newspaper sales terms, September is the month of recovery from the summer. So month-on-month circulations generally rise and that point is certainly proved by every serious daily title in today's release of the officially-audited ABC figures. But the daily red-tops and the lamentable Daily Express continued their slide.
Even so, once we look at the year-on-year comparisons, the picture looks considerably less bright. With the exception of the Daily Mail (up 1.55%) and The Independent - up 0.95%, but almost entirely attributable to an increase of 2,330 multiple copy sales (aka bulks) - every daily national newspaper sold fewer copies in September 2006 than it did in September 2005.
The 12-month contrast makes for depressing reading, with substantial falls among the daily red-tops (a market dip of 4.39%) and further evidence, as if it were needed, of overall decline. The serious market recorded a fall of more than 1%, with The Guardian down by 3.71% and The Times down by 2.30%. So much for changes in format transforming the fortunes of newsprint, eh?
The Sunday titles fared rather better. The Independent on Sunday added 15.27% to its sale and The Observer also managed a 4.48% uplift. That compared to drops of 3.74% for the Sunday Times and 1.86% for the Sunday Telegraph. It's a very different story for the once-populars. The News of the World is heading towards another psychological low point of 3.5m, while its competitors race to historic new lows: the Sunday Mirror is below 1.5m, having lost more than 6% of its sale in a year, and the People suffered a 10% drop, moving inevitably towards 800,000. There is, it seems, no hope for that title any longer.
To sum up, if this is September what the hell is December going to be like? The alternatives to buying newspapers - such as free editions, magazines, news on the net and, one suspects, not bothering with news at all - are having a cataclysmic effect on newspaper circulations in Britain. I know I've said it before. I know that owners are saying it (though Tony O'Reilly remains one of newsprint's great optimists). But it cannot be said often enough: the switch to multi-media journalism is not an option, it's a must. If we are to retain and build audiences for our "brands" then integration is essential as soon as possible. All eyes then on the great Telegraph revolution!
