Sales gap narrows to two-year low between top two Scottish daily titles

THE average sales gap between the two best-selling Scottish daily newspapers has closed to its narrowest in two years.

Say the October ABCs, the gap – as measured by Average Net Circulation – between The Scottish Sun and its nearest rival, the Daily Record, was 23,909. In September, it was 29,697; in August, 28,126; and in July, 26,861.

In October, The Scottish Sun’s average daily sale was 365,534 compared to the Record’s 341,625.

It prompted the Daily Record and Sunday Mail’s managing director, Mark Hollinshead, to say: “The latest ABC results demonstrate how compelling and relevant content, combined with great marketing, work for the Daily Record: day in, day out. It’s easy to artificially inflate your sales through price cutting.”

The Record’s free, early evening edition, PM, adds another16,000 copies on to the Record’s results.

Meanwhile, the average for the country’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Sunday Mail, was 425,033. It was 428,513 in September, 437,650 in August and 422,343 in July.

Average Net Circulation figures include free give-aways.

The other figures, at a glance, include:

Scottish News of the World 271,484 (compared to 274,156 for September), Sunday Post 254,027 (compared to 256,823), Scottish Daily Mail 116,532 (120,808), Scottish Mail on Sunday 109,970 (108,632), Scottish Daily Star 83,359 (85,138), Scottish Daily Express 73,722 (73,352), Sunday Times Scotland 72,020 (69,942), Scotland on Sunday 62,258 (63,706), The Herald 61,524 (62,693), The Scotsman 48,673 (49,970), Scottish Sunday Express 43,307 (40,995), Sunday Herald 43,095 (43,622), Scottish Daily Mirror 29,610 (31,241), Scottish Daily Star – Sunday 29,049 (29,798) and The Times 28,746 (29,983).