Free newspaper Metro had the highest reported circulation among daily newspapers in the United Kingdom in December 2023 with *** thousand copies distributed to the public. Ranking second with a paid circulation of *** thousand was the Daily Mail, followed by free paper Evening Standard with a circulation of *** thousand. Due to the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles having kept their circulations private since the beginning of 2020, comparing circulations across major news brands has grown more difficult. The Guardian also chose to keep its circulation figures private and as such is not included in this analysis. Daily papers published on Sundays only can be found here. Newspapers in the UK   Expenditure on newspapers in the UK decreased consistently over the last few decades. In 2005, annual spending on newspapers exceeded *** billion British pounds, whereas by 2020 this figure had fallen considerably to *** billion GBP. Despite this, newspapers remain important to consumers. A survey held in the United Kingdom found that the Daily Express was considered the most important newspaper to readers, whilst titles from the Sun lagged behind in this respect. When it came to popularity and the public's opinion of selected major newspapers, commuter paper Metro was the favorite. Data found that Metro was the most popular newspaper in the UK, followed closely by The Guardian. Metro enjoys a wide readership thanks to its regular distribution in London, and remains free to readers.

The national news brand with the highest reported drop circulation in the United Kingdom was Sunday People, with a circulation decrease of around ***percent. The leading national paper by circulation, the Daily Mail, saw a drop of nearly ******percent. Online newspaper readership The newspaper industry is having to make major readjustments to accommodate digital readership. Physical paper sales have been falling as consumers increasingly turn to online news outlets. Data on the monthly reach of national newspapers revealed that smartphones are the most popular platform for newspaper consumption across all major news brands, though free paper Metro had the highest print reach thanks to its regular distribution across London. Journalists Despite the fall in newspaper circulation, the number of journalists in the UK is climbing. In 2020, over *** thousand journalists and newspaper and periodical editors were employed in the United Kingdom, the highest number recorded since 2010.

The leading newspaper in terms of overall reach in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020 was The Sun. The tabloid newspaper, which has been embroiled in numerous controversies over the years, had a combined reach from its print editions and website of just over 38 million from April 2019 to March 2020.

News online

The newspaper industry has had to make major readjustments to a digitalized future. Physical paper sales have been falling for years with readers being able to gain access to news on a constant and instant level online. Some brands in the UK see over 150 million unique monthly visits online. The mobile phone is now the leading way individuals consume news in the UK for almost every major brand.

The printing industry

Expenditure on newspapers in the UK based on volume has seen a decrease of about three billion British pounds during the last 10 years. Revenues from the printing of newspapers in the UK will fall to a forecasted 16.6 million U.S. dollars in 2024, down from 97 million U.S. Dollars in 2012.

In the first half of 2024, the leading regional daily newspaper in the United Kingdom was Irish News, with a total circulation of nearly 23 thousand. Despite its leading position in the ranking, the newspaper suffered a nine percent drop in circulation compared to the first half of 2023. Liverpool Echo was hit particularly hard with a year-over-year decline of 18 percent. All the top ten daily regional newspapers saw a YOY decrease, and the first six months of 2023 marked the first period in which the majority of leading regionals had a circulation of under ten thousand. Spotlight on Manchester Evening News Manchester Evening News dropped out of the top 10 in the first half of 2023 after Reach chose to end free copies of the publication due to increasing newsprint costs and the paper's significant online audience rendering free print copies unnecessary. Free copies in general saw a drop in terms of circulation type, but digital audience was also down. Whilst Manchester Evening News remains the leading regional news brand by audience, its audience was up by over seven percent year over year. Other papers are also affected, with advertising revenue down and an increasing reliance on social networks and apps for news. The price of news Getting the public to pay for news in a landscape where there is a proliferation of free content is no mean feat. Indeed, the paid circulation of national newspapers in the UK fell for several large publications between 2024 and 2025, the Daily Star, Daily Record, and Daily Mirror all seeing a decline of around 17 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, the cover price of national newspapers, at least in some cases, doubled over the course of a decade. Annual subscriptions to digital news sites are also not always affordable for the average consumer, with some costing around 300 GBP per year.

The Times had an average monthly reach of around 15 million adults in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020. The print and digital reach of The Times and The Times on Sunday was higher among women than men, with over 7.7 million women a month reached by The Times or its website on average. Reach was also significantly higher amongst older consumers, with 11.4 million in the over 35 years age group accessing The Times each month.

Print outdoes online

The Times readership demographics reveal that more women read the newspaper than men, and that 4.1 million households with children get the daily paper every month. Of the leading national newspapers in the United Kingdom in 2019, The Times was the only one to have a higher reach in print than any online version.

Times Newspapers

The Sunday Times and The Times are both owned by Times Newspapers Ltd and based in London. The Sunday Times is published once a week and is the second most successful Sunday newspaper in the UK. The Times is published daily from Monday to Saturday.

The declining demand for print in major European markets like the UK, Germany and France means newspaper publishers face shrinking revenue from both sales and printed advertisements. Publishers are adjusting by developing their digital presence, introducing subscription paywalls, subscriber-only newsletters, digital advertising initiatives and strategic media partnerships to support revenue as traditional print readership continues to slump. In the five years through 2025, Book, Newspaper & Magazine Publishing revenue is projected to drop at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, to reach €102.5 billion, including an estimated drop of 3.9% in 2025 when the average industry profit margin is expected to reach 9%. Despite difficult conditions, the book publishing segment has had a strong growth in revenue since 2020, fuelled by consumers picking up more books during lockdown periods. However, the cost of print publishing has risen significantly in recent years, driven higher by global inflation with the overall producer price index for paper and paper products in the Euro area climbed 1.1% since January 2025. Publishers also face higher transport and wage costs, which are squeezing profit and limiting revenue growth. In 2024, Western European transport expenses rose by approximately 3%, according to the European Commission. Rising fuel prices and persistent driver shortages continue to push logistics costs up across the publishing sector. Looking to the future, publishers must adapt to the new digital world. The gradual slump in print media means publishers must develop their digital presence to supplement their print publications. Still, publishing companies face growing pressure as more people turn to self-publishing platforms and social-focused news channels, bypassing traditional publishers. This will prompt companies to expand into multimedia like podcasts, video journalism, and interactive graphics to diversify content formats and reach younger demographics. These trends increasingly erode established income sources like print sales and conventional advertising. As a result, the industry will likely see revenue remain strained for several years ahead. Industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.1% over the five years through 2030, reaching €103 billion.

Readers of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph were more likely to be women, with 12.1 million monthly female readers of The Daily Telegraph from April 2019 to March 2020. Readership of both The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph proved to be more popular among older adults than younger ones. Throughout the period observed, approximately 16 million individuals over 35 years old read The Daily Telegraph.

The declining demand for print in major European markets like the UK, Germany and France means newspaper publishers face shrinking revenue from both sales and printed advertisements. Publishers are adjusting by developing their digital presence, introducing subscription paywalls, subscriber-only newsletters, digital advertising initiatives and strategic media partnerships to support revenue as traditional print readership continues to slump. In the five years through 2025, Book, Newspaper & Magazine Publishing revenue is projected to drop at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, to reach €102.5 billion, including an estimated drop of 3.9% in 2025 when the average industry profit margin is expected to reach 9%. Despite difficult conditions, the book publishing segment has had a strong growth in revenue since 2020, fuelled by consumers picking up more books during lockdown periods. However, the cost of print publishing has risen significantly in recent years, driven higher by global inflation with the overall producer price index for paper and paper products in the Euro area climbed 1.1% since January 2025. Publishers also face higher transport and wage costs, which are squeezing profit and limiting revenue growth. In 2024, Western European transport expenses rose by approximately 3%, according to the European Commission. Rising fuel prices and persistent driver shortages continue to push logistics costs up across the publishing sector. Looking to the future, publishers must adapt to the new digital world. The gradual slump in print media means publishers must develop their digital presence to supplement their print publications. Still, publishing companies face growing pressure as more people turn to self-publishing platforms and social-focused news channels, bypassing traditional publishers. This will prompt companies to expand into multimedia like podcasts, video journalism, and interactive graphics to diversify content formats and reach younger demographics. These trends increasingly erode established income sources like print sales and conventional advertising. As a result, the industry will likely see revenue remain strained for several years ahead. Industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.1% over the five years through 2030, reaching €103 billion.

There is no denying that the way people consume newspapers and magazines has changed. As of 2020, more than two thirds of individuals in Great Britain were either reading or downloading online news, newspapers or magazines. This was more than three times the share of online readers as compared to 2007. The share of UK online readers was higher than the European Union (EU 28) average. As of February 2019, BBC News online had the highest share of readers in the UK, with the Guardian and Mail Online coming in as second and third choice.

How do people like their news?

According to an Ofcom study, both television and the internet were more likely to be a source of news over newspapers across all UK countries. In fact, in Northern Ireland, individuals were more likely to receive news via word of mouth rather than through a physical newspaper or printed magazine.

Social media and news

In some European countries, approximately half of news consumers used Facebook as a source of news, while in the UK, it was approximately one quarter of news consumers. In the UK, Facebook was the leading social media network as a source for news, followed by Twitter and YouTube.

The declining demand for print in major European markets like the UK, Germany and France means newspaper publishers face shrinking revenue from both sales and printed advertisements. Publishers are adjusting by developing their digital presence, introducing subscription paywalls, subscriber-only newsletters, digital advertising initiatives and strategic media partnerships to support revenue as traditional print readership continues to slump. In the five years through 2025, Book, Newspaper & Magazine Publishing revenue is projected to drop at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, to reach €102.5 billion, including an estimated drop of 3.9% in 2025 when the average industry profit margin is expected to reach 9%. Despite difficult conditions, the book publishing segment has had a strong growth in revenue since 2020, fuelled by consumers picking up more books during lockdown periods. However, the cost of print publishing has risen significantly in recent years, driven higher by global inflation with the overall producer price index for paper and paper products in the Euro area climbed 1.1% since January 2025. Publishers also face higher transport and wage costs, which are squeezing profit and limiting revenue growth. In 2024, Western European transport expenses rose by approximately 3%, according to the European Commission. Rising fuel prices and persistent driver shortages continue to push logistics costs up across the publishing sector. Looking to the future, publishers must adapt to the new digital world. The gradual slump in print media means publishers must develop their digital presence to supplement their print publications. Still, publishing companies face growing pressure as more people turn to self-publishing platforms and social-focused news channels, bypassing traditional publishers. This will prompt companies to expand into multimedia like podcasts, video journalism, and interactive graphics to diversify content formats and reach younger demographics. These trends increasingly erode established income sources like print sales and conventional advertising. As a result, the industry will likely see revenue remain strained for several years ahead. Industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.1% over the five years through 2030, reaching €103 billion.

The Daily Mail had an average monthly reach of over 36.2 million individuals from April 2019 to March 2020. The daily newspapers’ reach was higher among women than men, with nearly 20 million women reached by the newspaper on an average month during the time period. Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid formatted newspaper founded in 1896. Other editions of the daily paper include its sister paper The Mail on Sunday, as well as the Scottish and Irish Editions. The Daily Mail’s main target audience is lower-middle-class British women. It was the first newspaper in the UK to write articles targeted at women. As of April 2019, the Daily Mail had a circulation of almost 1.2 million newspapers, the second highest in the United Kingdom.

Newspaper consumption in the UK

There has been a decrease in newspaper consumption expenditure in the United Kingdom over recent years. UK households purchased roughly 3.3 million British pounds worth of newspapers in 2018, compared to 4.5 million pounds in 2013. Based on a survey in 2018, 29 percent of adults in Great Britain that regularly access news thought that the quality of the news nowadays is slightly worse than it was five years ago.

The declining demand for print in major European markets like the UK, Germany and France means newspaper publishers face shrinking revenue from both sales and printed advertisements. Publishers are adjusting by developing their digital presence, introducing subscription paywalls, subscriber-only newsletters, digital advertising initiatives and strategic media partnerships to support revenue as traditional print readership continues to slump. In the five years through 2025, Book, Newspaper & Magazine Publishing revenue is projected to drop at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, to reach €102.5 billion, including an estimated drop of 3.9% in 2025 when the average industry profit margin is expected to reach 9%. Despite difficult conditions, the book publishing segment has had a strong growth in revenue since 2020, fuelled by consumers picking up more books during lockdown periods. However, the cost of print publishing has risen significantly in recent years, driven higher by global inflation with the overall producer price index for paper and paper products in the Euro area climbed 1.1% since January 2025. Publishers also face higher transport and wage costs, which are squeezing profit and limiting revenue growth. In 2024, Western European transport expenses rose by approximately 3%, according to the European Commission. Rising fuel prices and persistent driver shortages continue to push logistics costs up across the publishing sector. Looking to the future, publishers must adapt to the new digital world. The gradual slump in print media means publishers must develop their digital presence to supplement their print publications. Still, publishing companies face growing pressure as more people turn to self-publishing platforms and social-focused news channels, bypassing traditional publishers. This will prompt companies to expand into multimedia like podcasts, video journalism, and interactive graphics to diversify content formats and reach younger demographics. These trends increasingly erode established income sources like print sales and conventional advertising. As a result, the industry will likely see revenue remain strained for several years ahead. Industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.1% over the five years through 2030, reaching €103 billion.

The declining demand for print in major European markets like the UK, Germany and France means newspaper publishers face shrinking revenue from both sales and printed advertisements. Publishers are adjusting by developing their digital presence, introducing subscription paywalls, subscriber-only newsletters, digital advertising initiatives and strategic media partnerships to support revenue as traditional print readership continues to slump. In the five years through 2025, Book, Newspaper & Magazine Publishing revenue is projected to drop at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, to reach €102.5 billion, including an estimated drop of 3.9% in 2025 when the average industry profit margin is expected to reach 9%. Despite difficult conditions, the book publishing segment has had a strong growth in revenue since 2020, fuelled by consumers picking up more books during lockdown periods. However, the cost of print publishing has risen significantly in recent years, driven higher by global inflation with the overall producer price index for paper and paper products in the Euro area climbed 1.1% since January 2025. Publishers also face higher transport and wage costs, which are squeezing profit and limiting revenue growth. In 2024, Western European transport expenses rose by approximately 3%, according to the European Commission. Rising fuel prices and persistent driver shortages continue to push logistics costs up across the publishing sector. Looking to the future, publishers must adapt to the new digital world. The gradual slump in print media means publishers must develop their digital presence to supplement their print publications. Still, publishing companies face growing pressure as more people turn to self-publishing platforms and social-focused news channels, bypassing traditional publishers. This will prompt companies to expand into multimedia like podcasts, video journalism, and interactive graphics to diversify content formats and reach younger demographics. These trends increasingly erode established income sources like print sales and conventional advertising. As a result, the industry will likely see revenue remain strained for several years ahead. Industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 0.1% over the five years through 2030, reaching €103 billion.

COVID-19 is the first known coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, the seasonal circulation of the four milder coronaviruses of humans – OC43, NL63, 229E and HKU1 – raises the possibility that these viruses are the descendants of more ancient coronavirus pandemics. This proposal arises by analogy to the observed descent of seasonal influenza subtypes H2N2 (now extinct), H3N2 and H1H1 from the pandemic strains of 1957, 1968 and 2009, respectively. Recent historical revisionist speculation has focussed on the influenza pandemic of 1889-1892, based on molecular phylogenetic reconstructions that show the emergence of human coronavirus OC43 around that time, probably by zoonosis from cattle. If the “Russian influenza”, as The Times named it in early 1890, was not influenza but caused by a coronavirus, the origins of the other three milder human coronaviruses may also have left a residue of clinical evidence in the 19th century medical literature and popular press. In this paper, we search digitised 19th century British newspapers for evidence of previously unsuspected coronavirus pandemics. We conclude that there is little or no corpus linguistic signal in the UK national press for large-scale outbreaks of unidentified respiratory disease for the period 1785 to 1890. Methods The data file is a spreadsheet used to record queries made via CQPweb (https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk). Search Terms For clarity, in the ensuing descriptions, we use bold font for search terms and italic font for collocates and other quotations. Based on clinical descriptions of COVID-19 (reviewed by Cevik et al., 2020), we identified the following search terms: 1) “cough”, 2) “fever”, 3) “pneumonia”. To avoid confusion with years when influenza pandemics may have occurred, we added 4) “influenza” and 5) “epidemic”. Any combination of terms 1 to 3 co-occurring with term 4 alone or terms 4 and 5 together, would be indicative of a respiratory outbreak caused by, or at the least attributed to, influenza. By contrast, any combination of terms 1 to 3 co-occurring with term 5 alone, or without either of terms 4 and 5, would suggest a respiratory disease that was not confidently identified as influenza at the time. This outbreak would provide a candidate coronavirus epidemic for further investigation. Newspapers Newspapers and years searched were as follows: Belfast Newsletter (1828-1900), The Era (1838-1900), Glasgow Herald (1820-1900), Hampshire & Portsmouth Telegraph (1799-1900), Ipswich Journal (1800-1900), Liverpool Mercury (1811-1900), Northern Echo (1870-1900) Pall Mall Gazette (1865-1900), Reynold’s Daily (1850-1900), Western Mail (1869-1900) and The Times (1785-2009). The search in The Times was extended to 2009 in order to provide a comparison with the 20th century. Searches were performed using Lancaster University’s instance of the CQPweb (Corpus Query Processor) corpus analysis software (https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk/; Hardie, 2012). CQPweb’s database is populated from the newspapers listed, using optical character recognition (OCR), so for older publications in particular, some errors may be present (McEnery et al., 2019). Statistics The occurrence of each of the five search terms was calculated per million words within the annual output of each publication, in CQPweb. This is compared to a background distribution constituting the corresponding words per million for each search term over the total year range for each newspaper. Within the annual distributions, for each search term and each newspaper, we determined the years lying in the top 1% (i.e. p<0.05 after application of a Bonferroni correction), following Gabrielatos et al. (2012). These are deemed to be years when that search term was in statistically significant usage above its background level for the newspaper in which it occurs. For years when search terms were significantly elevated, we also calculated collocates at range n. Collocates, in corpus linguistics, are other words found at statistically significant usage, over their own background levels, in a window from n positions to the left to n positions to the right of the search term. In other words, they are found in significant proximity to the search term. A default value of n=10 was used throughout, unless specified. Collocation analysis therefore assists in showing how a search term associates with other words within a corpus, providing information about the context in which that search term is used. CQPweb provides a log ratio method for the quantification of the strength of collocation.

Readers of The Guardian were more likely to be women, with nearly 15 million monthly female readers in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020. Readership of The Guardian proved to be more popular among older adults than younger ones. Throughout the period observed, approximately 18.5 million individuals over 35 years old read The Guardian, either on print or online.

Reach for The Sun

The tabloid newspaper The Sun saw the highest reach on 2019, with The Guardian as the sixth highest. Compared to other online news brands in the UK, BBC News online was by far the most popular, followed by the Mail online. The Guardian online was the third most popular online news brand as of February 2019.

Accessing the news online

More and more people access news online these days, with the main way of accessing online news? via smartphone. A 2019 survey revealed that half of users prefer smartphones to access news online.

The Independent had a monthly audience of over 28.1 million individuals from April 2019 to March 2020 in the United Kingdom. Reach was higher among adults over the age of 35 than for the 15 to 35 age group, with 19.2 million and 8.9 million readers respectively. The Independent on the internet

The Independent was established as a broadsheet paper in 1986 but after 30 years it stopped printed editions and is now an online only news publisher. However, it was not in the top ten most accessed online news brands in the UK in 2019, being placed 15th on a list topped by BBC News online.

Online news popularity

In a 2019 survey in the UK, it was revealed that the most popular printed or online newspaper (in terms of people holding a positive opinion of the paper) was the Metro. The Independent was seventh most popular with a positivity rating of 28 percent.

The Daly Mirror reached an average monthly audience of over 32.9 million adults in the United Kingdom during the time period April 2019 to March 2020. The Mirror newspapers in their different formats, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People, reached more women than men in the period from April 2019 to March 2020. Reach was also higher among adults aged over 35 years than it was among 15 to 34-year-olds. The Sunday People is a Sunday newspaper that was founded in 1881 and bought by Reach plc in 1961, it now shares a website with other Mirror papers.

Daily Mirror reach

Between July 2018 and June 2019, the Daily Mirror had the third highest reach among men and women in Great Britain in both its print and digital forms. The tabloid newspaper was among the leading newspapers used for news nowadays in the UK .

Household expenditure on newspapers

In 2018, the average weekly household spend on newspapers in the United Kingdom was one pound and thirty pence. This amount varied based on the age group. Older adults, aged 75 years or over, spent three pounds and ten pence a week. Younger adults, under 30 years old, spent an average of 10 pence on newspapers weekly.

The Scottish newspaper The Herald had an average monthly reach of around 2 million adults in Great Britain from April 2019 to March 2020. The print and digital reach of The Herald and The Sunday Herald was higher among women than men, with over 1 million women a month reached by The Herald or its website on average. Reach was also significantly higher amongst older consumers, with roughly 1.6 million in the over 35 years age group accessing The Herald each month.

The print and digital reach of the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020 was higher among women than men, with over 5.7 million women a month reached by the Daily Star or its website on average. Reach was also significantly higher amongst older consumers, with roughly 9.7 million in the over 35 years age group accessing the Daily Star each month.

Overall positive growth

During the same year, tabloid newspaper The Sun and The Sun on Sunday had the highest reach of all newspapers in the United Kingdom (UK), roughly five times that of the Daily Star and its Sunday publication. Despite this, monthly reach of the Daily Star has been on the rise since 2012, hitting its peak in the period between April 2018 and March 2019. Between July 2017 and December 2019, its cumulative reach was higher than any recorded during the previous years. As the print industry digitalizes, the Daily Star and many other newspapers have adapted by launching online platforms which in conjunction with print editions have helped maintain and even grow their reader base.

The Guardian leading the UK newspaper industry

As of 2019, the most popular newspapers in the UK according to consumers’ opinions were Metro, The Guardian, The Times, and The Sunday Times. The Guardian saw the least decrease in circulation growth among tabloid newspapers in 2019, a year where all newspapers suffered an overall decline. The Daily Star Sunday was impacted the most, with a 16.2 percent drop in circulation.

The newspaper the Daily Record had an average monthly reach of 8.2 million adults across the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020. Reach was higher among women than men, with about 4.66 million women reached by the Daily Record or its website on average monthly.