Revision Guru

Market Segmentation - UK Newspaper Data

How Consumer Demand for National Newspapers has Changed in the Last Ten Years

The tables below show out the change in the circulation of the major UK national Daily and Sunday newspapers, comparing circulation at the start of the 1990s with the most recent data at the end of 2001:

Daily Newspaper Titles	Jan-June 1990	July - Dec 2001	% Change
	Circulation (Avg per Day)	Circulation (Avg per Day)
Times	432,453	719,861	66.5%
Financial Times	291,531	478,535	64.1
Daily Mail	1,670,036	2,476,625	48.3
Guardian	430,458	413,674	(3.9)%
Daily Telegraph	1,085,787	1,020,889	(6.0)%
Sun	3,936,692	3,472,841	(11.8)%
Evening Standard	517,372	430,023	(16.9)%
Daily Record	777,434	597,419	(23.2)%
The Mirror	3,129,890	2,187,960	(30.1)%
The Express	1,561,754	957,574	(38.7)%
Independent	414,357	230,633	(44.3)%
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulation

Sunday Newspaper Titles	Jan-June 1990	July - Dec 2001	% Change
	Circulation (Avg per Day)	Circulation (Avg per Day)
*Sunday Telegraph*	586,673	812.077	38.4%
*Mail on Sunday*	1,889,431	2,381,142	26.0
*Sunday Times*	1,186,667	1,384,233	16.6
*Observer*	566,854	473,521	(16.5)%
*News of the World*	5,036,019	4,030,283	(20.0)%
*Sunday Mirror*	2,910,867	1,836,413	(36.9)%
*Sunday People*	2,588,468	1,382,366	(46.6)%
*Sunday Express*	1,727,376	863,779	(50.0)%
*Sunday Sport*	451,951	202,938	(55.1)%
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulation

As the tables above highlight, the majority of daily and Sunday papers have suffered declines in circulation over the last decade. However, there are some notable exceptions, suggesting that certain newspapers have a much stronger understanding of key segmentation issues and how to position a newspaper to exploit that segment.

The growth in circulation at The times has been largely due to aggressive price cutting. News International (the owners of The Times) began to cut the price of the paper aggressively in 1993. This pricing strategy was intended to attract new customers who would develop loyalty to the newspaper and continue to purchase it once the cover price was raised towards the price levels of other "quality" newspapers. This is a good example of a penetration pricing strategy. The increase in newspaper circulation was not achieved without substantial cost and The Times is still distributed at heavily discounted prices to newspaper retailers.

The increase in circulation at the Financial Times largely reflects expansion into European editions (including FT Deutschland - whose circulation is now over 75,000) and discounted prices abroad. Growth at the Sunday Telegraph is largely the result of a discount subscription scheme.

Perhaps the most intriguing change in newspaper performance in the last ten years has been the increase in circulation of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday - both news papers operating in the mid-market segment. The Daily Mail grew its circulation by 48% and the Mail on Sunday by 26% between January 1990 and December 2001. Compare this performance with that of the Mail's main mid-market competitor. The Daily Express suffered a 39% decline over the same period and the Sunday Express a fall of 50%. The Mail titles appear to have succeeded by combining some elements of quality news and editorial with a move "downward" to include more content elements typically found in the popular mass-market segment (such as celebrity features). The Express titles have been hurt by the improved quality of the Mail on one hand, and by shifts towards the mid-market segment by mass-market tabloids. As a result, the Daily Mail now dominates the mid-market segment, responsible for 72% of mid-market circulations compared to 44% in 1990.

Factors behind the overall decline in national newspaper circulation

Several factors have impacted national newspaper circulations over the last decade. These are summarised below:

Factor	Comment
Consumer lifestyle changes	UK consumers have greater demands upon their time and, consequently, many consumers have less time to devote to reading daily newspapers.
Emergence of new news and information channels	The increased penetration of Internet access and usage, together with new Digital TV channels (several dedicated to news) and the deregulation of UK radio market, allows consumers to obtain "news" and information at more frequent intervals and at a time that suits them. The Internet in particular allows consumes to define and filter their news requirements more closely and to obtain such information at very low / zero cost. The ability for consumers to "personalise" news and information is significant to daily national newspapers that have, traditionally positioned themselves as a "one-stop-shop" for news.
Younger generation less likely to purchase newspapers	For various reasons, including the two described above, the younger generation demonstrates significantly less enthuisiasm for buying a daily national newspaper than older generations. The Daily Mail Group has responded to this change by successfully introducing a free morning newspaper (Metro) aimed at young, time-poor commuters in UK cities who would not otherwise buy a morning newspaper. This strategy has achieved a total UK circulation of nearly 830,000 per day by December 2001 making Metro the UK's sixth-largest daily newspaper.

In the industry as a whole, whilst circulation has fallen, the size of newspapers (measured by the number of pages) has increased along with cover prices. it has become necesary to offer the consumer more in terms of information and coverage - leading to more pages and an increase in the number of "supplements".