Newsquest paper continues run of circulation increases, as rivals such as Johnston Press’s Scotland on Sunday report hefty declines

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Newsquest’s Sunday Herald has reported a 15% sales rise in the first half of the year, boosted by its support for the Scottish National party at the general election.

The Sunday Herald reported the highest percentage year-on-year increase in sales among all weekly regional newspapers in the first six months, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Wednesday.

Its sales in the second half of 2014 were also boosted by its support for a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum.



Sales of its daily sister paper The Herald fell by 8.9% year on year, while its stablemate the Evening Times fell by 10.3%.



Newsquest’s other pro-independence title The National, which previously published from Monday to Friday, added a Saturday edition in May.

The four titles’ journalists are to ballot for strike action after their parent company, the Herald & Times Group, announced editorial cuts affecting up to 20 jobs.

“This treadmill of redundancies cannot continue,” said Paul Holleran, the National Union of Journalists’ national organiser. “[Newsquest] should just seek an interested buyer and sell the titles if their plan is to shrink the business to nothing.”

The rest of Newsquest’s stable of titles fared disappointingly, with Darlington’s Northern Echo dropping by 9.5% and Bradford’s Telegraph & Argus falling by 12.8%.

Newsquest’s website network saw its daily browser numbers rise by 35.5% year on year to 1,269,287.

Johnston Press’s year has gone from bad to worse with the Doncaster Star and Scotland on Sunday reporting the two biggest percentage falls in print circulation among the UK’s regional newspapers in the first six months.

The Doncaster Star suffered a 25% year-on-year drop while Scotland on Sunday fell 20% compared with the first six months of last year.

There were significant double-digit drops for a number of its daily titles including the Sunderland Echo (-17.7%), Yorkshire Evening Post (-16%) and the Wigan Evening Post (-10%). Other major fallers included the Blackpool Gazette (-13.8%) and the Scotsman (-12.6%).

Johnston Press’s combined traffic of daily unique browsers rose by 21% year on year to 972,454. However, there were some anomalies such as Scotsman.com, which was down by 33.5%.

Local World saw 13% year-on-year print sales falls at the Leicester Mercury and the Derby Telegraph. There was a 12.6% drop at the Nottingham Post, while the Hull Daily Mail and Stoke Sentinel fell 10% and 10.8% respectively.

Local World’s website network increased its daily browser numbers by 35% year on year to 1,228,953.

Trinity Mirror did not report six-monthly audited information for a direct comparison of percentage circulation changes in the most recent ABC report.