MediaCT Light Bites: Read All About It!

The Q2 2010 National Readership Survey results were released on 27 August and provide newspaper and magazine publishers with the official readership estimates for their publications.

The Sun retains its position as the most read national daily newspaper with 7.7m readers, followed by Daily Mail (4.9m) and Daily Mirror (3.2m).  However, comparing data for national daily newspapers for the 12-month period ending June 2010 with the same period ending June 2009, only Daily Star and Daily Mail have gained readers (+8% and +1% respectively), the other nine titles all recorded a fall in readership.

The Independent, which relaunched in April following its sale to Russian billionaire, Alexander Lebedev, saw its 6-month readership rise by 16,000 to 559,000 readers since the last set of results (Q1 2010) - helped possibly by the handing out of some free copies during the General Election.  Since moving from a paid-for to a free title last year, the London Evening Standard, another Lebedev-owned title, continues to grow its readership and an average issue is now read by over 1.4m adults, an increase of 132% on the same 12-month period last year.

In the Sunday market, the position of the best read title is enjoyed by The Sun's stablemate, News of the World, with 7.6m readers, followed by The Mail on Sunday (5.0m) and Sunday Mirror (3.8m).  The Sunday Times is the best read broadsheet with 3.2m readers for an average issue.  The Daily Star Sunday was the only national Sunday paper to increase its readership (+8%) year on year.

The NRS published the readership figures for 175 magazines.  The magazine with the highest number of readers is Sky Magazine, the monthly title sent to Sky TV subscribers, with 7.8m readers.  Magazines that enjoyed year on year increases in this set of results include the BBC's Music Magazine, History, Good Food and Olive titles; Delicious; New Scientist and; Look.  However, it was continued bad news for the `lads mags' with further readership declines for Nuts (-18%), Zoo (-15%), Loaded (-22%) and FHM (-17%).

All the latest top-line readership results for the newspapers and magazines measured on the NRS can be found on the NRS website.  The next set of results will be released on 26 November.