Leader Circulation Drops Again

Today sees the release of the ‘ABCs’ from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the industry body for media measurement for newspapers and the like.

Overall figures state that the Daily Post has dropped -3.8% and The Leader (Wrexham, Flintshire & Chester) is down -5.1 % to 15,314. This time last year The Leader was at 16,131 after dropping -12.5%.

These figures however give a wider view of performance over the North Wales area rather than specific to Wrexham. Using the ABC figures its possible to drill down for more detail.

Locally three newspapers cover the area, Trinity Mirrors “Daily Post” and North Wales Newspapers “Wrexham Leader” and “The Leader”. The ‘Wrexham Leader’ is more commonly known locally as the ‘Big Leader’.

The Daily Post does two editions in North Wales, the east and west.

Current average net circulation figures from ABC state for Wrexham:

Daily Post East (sold in Wrexham): 10,505 Source
The Leader (Wrexham): 9,131 (source)

For other editions of The Leader:

The Leader (Flintshire): 5,373
The Leader (Chester): 808 (source)

For the ‘Big Leader’ things look brighter as the output appears to be quite level at the 30,000 mark however that is balanced with it being a virtually entirely free delivered paper – out of 30,220 only 253 are noted as being anything aside from ‘free letterbox delivery. (source)

Industry news site Hold The Frontpage stated this morning “No regional daily titles in the UK saw their sales increase in the first half of this year“. Their full list of regionals for comparison and context can be found here, however this does not drill down as we have above.