National titles up cover prices

by John Reynolds, mediaweek.co.uk 14-Jan-09, 11:10

LONDON - Four national newspapers are raising their cover prices, as the battle against falling circulations and drops in advertising spend continue.

The Guardian and its Sunday sibling The Observer are to increase their cover prices by 10p, to 90p and £2 respectively.

From Monday 19 January, The Guardian will cost 90p, while The Observer will rise to £2 from 18 January, making it one of most expensive paper's in the sector, on a par with The Sunday Times, which upped its price in September 2006.

Elsewhere, the News of the World and Sunday Mirror are both set to increase cover prices by 5p to £1 this weekend, as the battle for sales in the Sunday red-tops heats up.

The move marks the News of the World's second price hike in less than two years, as it looks to offset revenue lost to falling circulation.

Its cover price of 95p will be increased on 18 January in England, Wales, Scotland and Ulster. It last upped its cover price on 8 January 2008 from 90p to 95p, as did rival the Sunday Mirror.

The Sunday Mirror's price rise will impact England, Wales, Scotland, Ulster and the Channel Islands.

The move by the two Sunday tabloids follows the Daily Mirror increasing its cover price by 5p to 45p on Monday (12 January).

News International's News of the World recorded an average circulation of 2,987,730 in December, a year-on-year drop of 5.67% and a month-on-month dip of 5.26%, according to the latest ABC figures.

It was the paper's lowest monthly circulation since it joined ABC's monthly circulation audit in 1962.

Trinity Mirror's Sunday Mirror witnessed a 9.08% year-on-year drop in circulation to 1,195,711 in December, which represented a month-on-month fall of 4.74%.

Comments

J T - 14/01/2009

Putting up cover-prices is only giving readers and potential readers one more reason why their decision to cut down on buying a paper is a good one. With what is on offer to the consumer today and what is in the pipeline with mulitmedia and on-line, publishers just need to bite the bullet and jump in there with a 100% on-line user-friendly edition and to ditch the paper editions completely. Clients and agencies already push media-owners to the edge demanding ever-more creative, engaging solutions that offer more indepth measurable results so, why are we ALL waiting? Surely, it is just as simple as that.