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Editor: Phillippa Smith
ISBN: 1-84168-214-4

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This report covers: newspapers, national, regional, daily, evening, weekly, Sunday, popular, quality, mass-market, mid-market, sources of revenue, circulation, free newspapers, advertising, buyer behaviour, content, Saturday edition buying habits, Sunday edition buying habits, regional winners, international comparisons of circulation, world's top 20 daily newspapers, business newspapers

Companies covered include: Newspaper Publishers Association, The Newspaper Society, The Press Complaints Commission, The Scottish Newspaper Publishers Association, News Group Newspapers, Times Newspapers, The Sun, News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times, Trinity Mirror, Liverpool Echo, Evening Mail, Evening Telegraph, Sunday mirror, Sunday People, Daily Mail & General Trust, Mail on Sunday, Northcliffe Newspapers, Associated Newspapers, Evening Standard, DMG, Telegraph Group, Hollinger Incorporated, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Telegraph, Express Newspapers, Express on Sunday, Daily Star, Daltons Weekly, Exchange and Mart, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Reed Regional Newspapers, Gannett Incorporated, Guardian Media Group, The Guardian, The Observer, Manchester Evening News, Regional Independent Media Holdings, Yorkshire Post, The Star, Eastern Counties Newspapers group, The Midland News Association, Independent News and Media

Executive Summary

Table of Contents

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report looks at the newspaper industry in the UK. Key Note estimates that the newspaper market in 2000 was worth £7.34bn, up from £7.1bn in 1999. 63.4 percent of newspaper revenue comes from advertising, which Key Note and many others believe renders the industry vulnerable to any downturn in advertising. The national press generate 55.2 percent of total revenue, with the remaining 44.8 percent generated by the regional press.

The national press is owned by roughly half a dozen publishers, which gives them enormous power. In the regional press sector, ownership is split between a much larger number of proprietors, although even here the top six or seven publishers dominate the scene. With three notable exceptions, ownership of the regional press is separate from that of the national press. This represents a considerable shift since the early 1990s when most of the national newspaper groups were involved in the regional newspaper sector. The key feature now in the regional newspaper market is the growing concentration of ownership, with very big publishers emerging, such as Trinity Mirror PLC and Newsquest PLC.

The regional press has not had an easy time since the beginning of 2000. Sales of morning, evening and Sunday regional papers have fallen sharply. Sales of weeklies have fallen too, but only slightly. The major growth sector in the regional press is the rise in circulation of The Metro, which is now running at more than 800,000 copies a day, and which by the end of 2001 will probably reach 1 million.

The national daily papers have done fairly well, with a 0.5 percent decline in circulation among the popular papers and a 1.1 percent increase among the quality papers — since September 2000. National Sunday papers have not fared quite so well, with a decline in circulation of the popular papers of 3 percent and a rise in circulation of the quality papers of 1.3 percent.

Three quality papers, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday and The Observer have at last managed to reverse their decline after years of falling sales.

Key Note forecasts that the newspaper market will grow by around 2.9 percent in 2001, taking total revenues to £7.55bn, but that thereafter growth will fall to 2.3 percent/2.8 percent until 2005 when growth will rise to 3.1 percent. For newspaper owners, the three most worrying features on the horizon are: a weakening of the UK and European economy; newsprint price rises after years of fairly weak prices; and inelasticity of newspaper cover prices.

Meanwhile, the newspaper industry is struggling to persuade the government that it should be allowed to take a bigger share in broadcast media. In the long term, broadcasting offers an attractive and complementary source of revenue for newspaper owners, as Rupert Murdoch's company, News Corporation has shown. Hence, the industry's pressure on the government to relax the rules on media ownership.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Text © 2001Key Note

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