The latest readership polls have been reported in Spain, with the free paper 20 Minutos coming out on top. The sports paper Marca had been first on the list, but even in this World Cup year it has lost an astonishing 104,000 readers.
20 Minutos, published by the Norwegian group Schibsted, was the only free paper to gain readers (41,000 since the last count in December). Two other popular free papers, Que! and Metro Directo lost 44,000 and 117,000 readers respectively.
The country's two most popular paid-for dailies, El Mundo and El Pais, both lost readers of 0.55% and 2.7% respectively with El Pais falling below the 2 million mark for the first time in, four audits. The results of the last audit showed that El Mundo's readership had risen 5.2%. ABC, another popular national daily, lost 6.24% or 54,000 readers to finish at 865,000.
Other success stories include the financial paper Expansion, which gained 5,000 readers, and the regional daily Diario de Cadiz, which attracted 43,000 more readers (+22.5%) than in 2005.
