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Business Rates/News/Newspapers & Magazines

Newspaper sales fall but profits still buoyant

The national newspaper circulation figures for January 2010 were published recently and showed an annual decline in copies sold almost across the bo
ard. But sales numbers by themselves do not reveal the whole story.

gure class=”content-editor-image-captioned content-editor-image-left” style=”width:300px;”> The Daily Star is the only title to gain in circulation in the past 13 years

For retailers it’s the gross profit generated by our sales that matters and over the past couple of days I have been digging through my collection of old copies of Retail Newsagent to get a longer view.

Looking back to 1997 and comparing gross profit generated with the 2010 figures a remarkable picutre is revealed.

While only The Star has increased its circulation in the past 13 years, four newspapers have increased their retail margin. These newspapers that have significantly increased retailer margin, even with a reduction in sales over the past 13 years, are more valuable to the trade than those that have not.

I am one of the fortunate newsagents who has three of these four newspapers, The Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, as our top selling titles. How do you fair?

width=”460px” The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian have increased their estimated retail margin over the past 13 years, despite losing circulation

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