Sun maintains lead in newspaper sales race

IT was pretty much a case of ‘as you were’ last month, in the race to be the biggest-selling daily newspaper in Scotland, with The Scottish Sun’s average circulation in December remaining at around 33,000 copies ahead of its rival, the Daily Record.

To be more accurate, the gap of 33,583 in November narrowed slightly to 32,807 last month. But a sterner test of The Scottish Sun’s sales lead will come with this month’s ABC figures, with the newspaper having last week increased its price from 10p to 15p.

December saw The Scottish Sun sell an average 416,837 sales, against the Record’s 384,030. But both are some way off the biggest seller in the country, the Sunday Mail, which registered an average figure of 470,413 – down 4,164 on the previous month. By contrast, the Scottish News of the World was up 3,879, to 309,451.

Next up was The Sunday Post, at 286,976, followed by the Scottish Daily Mail, at 122,256, and the Mail on Sunday, at 112,307.

The other figures read as follows: Daily Star 88,228, Scottish Daily Express 79,379, the Sunday Times Scotland 71,519, and The Herald 69,410.

Next up came Scotland on Sunday 64,174, The Scotsman 56,022, the Sunday Herald 52,521, and the Scottish Sunday Express 49,962.

Then there was the Daily Mirror 35,174, Sunday Mirror 30,727, the Daily Star – Sunday 30,002 and The Times 27,408.

Plus, The People 26,350, The Daily Telegraph 22,767, The Observer 20,608, The Sunday Telegraph 20,416, The Guardian 15,381, The Independent 9,725, The Independent on Sunday 7,985 and The Financial Times 5,768.