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Tabloid doom 

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In a hilarious piece of selective forecasting in the Evening Standard today, Roy Greenslade predicts the death of certain tabloid newspapers, but failed to mention one key one. Now why could that be?Greenslade kicks off by writing about how newspapes will prevail "once online enthusiasm dies down".

I wouldn't have quite put it like that, I don't see enthusiasm of the pace of digital development dying down, but at the same time I do not see newspapers dying either.

He's right when he points in his piece for the appetite to print, be it in form of our dailies, our free papers or even free magazines.

Sure not all of the print world will survive, but we have lost national and regional newspapers before the advent of the web and we will lose more we forward.

He goes onto make strong claims about the demise of the redtops and the Daily Express, which in a gossip obsessed age seems well wide of the mark. Yes they have lost readers, but the Sun enjoyed a circulation increase of 0.69% from May to 3,064,376. Averaged out over six months, the News International title sells 3,073,046 daily copies, down 2.86% year on year.

The Daily Mirror also experienced a slight rise in circulation in June, up 0.71% from May to 1,565,711. But it suffered one of the worst year-on-year falls of all the national papers -- its six-month average is 1,561,825, a year-on-year decline of 5.54%.

Yes both suffered year-on-year falls, but between them they sell almost 5m copies (more than 5m if you throw in the Daily Star). The Daily Star alone (795,891) outsells the Independent (surely in five years that will be all views and no news?) and The Guardian. Not exactly desertion.

However, while he predicts the problem will get worse, and of course it will, he only picks out the Express as the probably casualty of the so called "doomed" titles.

It is easy to see why. The Daily Express (Greenslade separates it from its mid-market rival the Associated owned Daily Mail) was up 0.58% on May to 770,403 in June. But its year-on-year circulation decline is the worst of all the national papers, down 8.79% with a six-month average of 764,575.

It is suffering, but its fate is as much linked to its proprietorship, in Richard Desmond, as much as anything else. It is a strong newspaper brand. Sadly it’s a bad newspaper.

Yes there is much doom, but surely Roy, if one paper more than any other is under threat it is the one you are writing in the Evening Standard under assault from three free sheets, one free sports mag and a men's mag as well.

The Standard's full-rate sales are down to a lowly 198,601 -- this in the world's capital city -- and the Standard's six-month average circulation is down 16.99% year-on-year.

If ever there was a sick man of newspapers, the Standard is your paper. Greenslade makes a projection over five years. I would project those figures.
Published Jul 25 2007, 05:04 PM by Gordon Macmillan
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by Simon Devitt
July 26, 2007 2:25 PM
 
Or maybe he just ommitted the standard because it is a local paper not a national one despite the fact that it is always lumped in with the national press. Just a thought
 
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Gordon Macmillan

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