Report reveals surprising circulation figures for Scottish newspapers
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A popular media Twitter account has published what are claimed to be the latest newspaper circulation figures for the main Scottish titles.
Only the Daily Record, Sunday Mail and Sunday Post have their figures audited by ABC with the embarrassing fall in numbers by other publishers kept a secret from advertisers.
The Scottish editions of papers like The Sun and Daily Mail aren’t included but with the combined reach of The Scotsman and The Herald barely over 20,000 it is easy to understand their desperation to capture online subscriptions.
In terms of news sites there is no evidence that subscriptions bring in more revenue than digital advertising with most titles scaling down staff numbers and sharing resources.
The same reporter names appear across the Daily Record, Daily Express and their Sunday editions, in England the Sunday Mirror and The People have five unique pages with the rest of their content from the Reach Group exactly the same.
With sales from outside of Scotland removed the figures are as follows:
Up to date daily circulation figures in Scotland for Scottish newspapers.
Daily Record – 59,615
Sunday Mail – 56,866
The Herald – 12,928
Herald on Sunday – 6,679
The Scotsman – 8,762
Scotland on Sunday – 4,921
Sunday Post – 35,183
The National – 3,555
Sunday National – 4195— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) March 30, 2023
Earlier this month the Press Gazette reported the following February circulation figures- Daily Record 61,117, Sunday Mail 59,648 and Sunday Post 44,036. All three titles were seeing circulation dropping by between 17-19% year on year.
The report is based on the same source but subtracts sales from outside of Scotland, clearly the Sunday Post is boosted strongly by sales from elsewhere.
The Daily Record sells less than 60,000 copies a day in Scotland. Cause and effect? pic.twitter.com/Gq9vgTj4oG
— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) March 30, 2023
The Courier – 20,682
P&J – 26,746— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) March 30, 2023
The demise of The Herald is a tragedy. It started in 2007 during the Holyrood elections, when, under the political editorship of one Douglas Fraser it adopted a vehemently anti-SNP stance. It never recovered. Fraser leapt from the sinking ship and joined BBC Scotland. https://t.co/xoVN2u38j3
— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) March 30, 2023
In February 2013 the Daily Record’s daily circulation figure was 256,024. The paper has lost nearly 200,000 daily sales in ten years. https://t.co/xoVN2u38j3
— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) March 30, 2023