The Sun suffers big sales fall without Page 3 - but don't rush to conclusions

On 22 January, the Sun published its final Page 3 picture of a woman with bare breasts. So how has the lack of a daily topless model affected the newspaper’s circulation?

Bald facts first. In February, the first full month without Page 3, the Sun recorded its lowest sale since early 1971, less than two years after Rupert Murdoch acquired the title.

It sold an average of 1,842,284 copies a day, 6.89% fewer than in January and 10.09% fewer than in February 2014.

The Sun’s red-top rivals, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star - which continues to publish pictures of topless women - did not appear to benefit from the Sun’s circulation slip.

The Mirror itself lost 3.89% of its sales in the course of a month, selling 886,390 copies, while the Star registered a negligible rise of 0.09% (just 368 copies) to reach a total of 425,614, which was 11.72% fewer than a year ago.

Related: The Sun's peekaboo Page 3 gives readers a mixed message

Now for the context. Most papers record decreases in February because it’s a short month. The Sun’s sale has been consistently lower this year than it was in the 1970s, that famous “soaraway” period when it was beginning its swift rise up the circulation ladder.

The Sun enjoyed a particularly good January, as it so often does, due to its cheap holiday offers to readers.

Taking those factors into account, it may be possible to argue that the one-month dip of 6.89% is not as bad as it seems and, therefore, the absence of Page 3 did not make a huge difference.

Even so, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the Sun’s month-on-month fall was the worst of all the national titles, daily and Sunday, in the month of February.

So I think we’re going to need another month to see whether Page 3’s disappearance has affected sales. Certainly, there was no sign of a significant switch to the Star.

Murdoch may be more alarmed, however, about the Sun on Sunday. Its continual decline over many months continued in February with a loss of more than 92,000 copies compared to the January total.

The paper (which, incidentally, has never carried Page 3-style pictures) saw its sale drop by 5.84% on the month to 1,489,942. Again, it had a good January, but the continuing decline of the title must be worrying News UK. It sold 12.11% fewer copies than in February last year.

Meanwhile, creeping up fast on the Sun on Sunday is the middle-market Mail on Sunday, which sold 1,450,201 copies in February. That gap between the two is therefore just under 40,000. Sales trends suggest the MoS could become the highest-selling Sunday title by the end of the year.

How did the other papers do in February?

Given that February is somewhat of rogue month, the best guide to the state of the overall market is to carry out a year-on-year comparison. It is not a pretty picture.

Several Sunday titles suffered double-digit percentage falls, including the Sunday Telegraph (-12.02%), the Daily Star Sunday (-12.28%), the Sunday People (-11.81%) and the Observer (-11.28%).

The Sunday Express and Sunday Mirror were off by 9.5% and 8.67% respectively, while the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Times lost about 5% of their sales.

As for the dailies, the Guardian was down 10.34% and there were significant falls also for the Daily Telegraph (-9.5%), the Daily Express (-8.9%), the Independent (-8%) and the i (-7.2%, on the back of a cover price rise).

The Financial Times (-6.2%) and the Daily Mail (-5.5%) did better than the overall fall of 7.7%. And the Times was the only paper to add sales over the year, recording a rise of 1.8%.

One final point. The Sunday market is continuing to decline at a significantly faster rate, something over 2%, than the daily market. The 10 nationally distributed London-based Sunday titles together sold a total of 6,233,154 copies in February.

It is sobering to recall that the News of the World alone sold more than that 25 years or so ago.

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