UK regional newspaper print sales in decline

Although it was reported in the Guardian that the print industry won’t be disappearing anytime soon, more recent news has a slightly negative undertone for the industry – an ABC report has shown that UK regional print sales have decreased by 10.2%.

An article on The Drum notes that year-on-year sales of regional print titles have been particularly bad and that this figure indicates a worsening situation for the print sector. The ABC report studied 70 print titles from various regions, including the Liverpool Echo, the Manchester Evening News and the London Evening Standard.

The Birmingham Mail and Doncaster Star were the worst affected newspapers, falling 24.6% year-on-year to an average of only 27,663 sales per day, and 25.2% to 767 sales per day respectively. This loss in distribution for the Birmingham Mail could be put down to the newspaper’s decision to reduce free distribution from 8,000 papers a day to 2,000 in Q1 and Q2 of the year.

The Lancashire Telegraph was the only regional newspaper to record a growth in overall readership figures, increasing by 1.6% to reach 13,304 copies; although it is noted that this may be down to the introduction of 1,615 free copies in its circulation.

ABC also released figures relating to magazine sales, but found they only dropped by 5% in terms of their distribution.

It seems that the print industry is in a state of flux; while direct mail is still popular and the industry as a whole is supposedly safe for the time being, smaller parts of the sector – such as regional UK newspapers – are suffering. What do you think this means for print as a whole?