While the UK’s media ethics furore ended up closing the News Of The World last year, how did News Corp.’s next-best-selling UK newspaper fare?
Figures show The Sun lost 15 percent of its circulation (470,979) through the last 12 months…
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But don’t go thinking negative perception radiating from its Sunday stablemate was to blame. Last year’s sales pattern merely followed that which has flowed for the last decade…
That is, The Sun’s circulation dips in winter before recovering in January. Rinse, repeat.
It never recovers enough to make up for a creeping and long-term decline. The Sun’s circulation has been falling for all the last 10 years – it is now almost a quarter down on this time a decade ago.
But this is about the same rate of decline shared by the industry as a whole, and has more to do with wider consumer factors like new technology choices than with phone hacking.
The point is, the Sun so far has been unhurt by the whirlwind surrounding it. But, now that the arrests of several senior journalists have dragged its own practices in to question, let’s watch to see if that changes.
The Sun, despite its circulation decline, remains profitable. After all, when proprietors cut costs, they can keep profit. Indeed, it supports its stablemates The Times and Sunday Times.