The Evening Standard, Daily Mail and General Trust’s London evening newspaper, has suffered an 18 per cent drop in circulation amid intensifying competition from London freesheets, thelondonpaper and London Lite.
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), publisher of the Daily Mail and Evening Standard, gave warning yesterday that it could not see “an imminent reduction” in competition in London, raising doubts over the Standard’s future.
DMGT, which also owns the London Lite, said yesterday that the title was struggling to regain lost ground but added that the freesheet war is unsustainable. Peter Williams, DMGT finance director, said that the decline at the Evening Standard was at its worst point but it “seems to be stabilising”.
The latest official newspaper circulation figures show that thelondonpaper, owned by News International, parent company of The Times, is ahead in the continuing battle with a distribution of 491,387 copies last month, compared with 400,614 for London Lite.
However, London Literecorded a 0.1 per cent increase, compared with a decline of 2.14 per cent at thelondonpaper.
Warnings over the London market came as DMGT posted a 24 per cent rise in profit before tax, to £135.3 million. Profit after tax from continuing operations fell by 31 per cent, which DMGT attributed to the sale of its Aberdeen Journals, boosting profit in the previous year by £122 million.
DMGT said that, for the first time, less than half of the group’s income came from print newspaper revenue, down from 56 per cent to 48 per cent.
The decline marks a milestone for the group and highlights the industry-wide switch among newspaper publishers from print to digital sources of advertising revenue.
Circulation of the Daily Mail fell 1.7 per cent in the six months to March, although revenue rose 5 per cent after the cover price was increased in April last year to 45p.
