Western Mail Circulation drops below critical mass

Latest Western Mail circulation figures show continuing decline.

Latest figures issued by the Audit Bureau of Circulation show a continuing decline in the Western Mail’s circulation over the last six months.

The figures, published today, show that the while the Western Mail’s circulation continued falling in the first six months of 2007, the paper suffered an even steeper decline in the second half of the year. This represents an accelerating annual loss of some 2,000. Were this decline to continue, within a decade or so, Wales’s only “National Newspaper” will have an (unsustainable) circulation of around 15,000.

Particularly worrying for the paper’s management will be the dramatic fall in circulation of the key Saturday edition with its sports’ commentary and weekend television listings, which showed a fall of more than 3,000 in just one year. In the second half of 2006 the Western Mail’s circulation had already fallen below the all-important 40,000 credibility level – putting it on a par with minor regional and sub-regional newspapers and, crucially, putting into jeopardy a hitherto enormous Welsh public-sector advertising harvest. There are, after all, very few other outlets for mandatory public notices and other government-sponsored advertisements in Wales.

One wonders what plans are being discussed in the boardroom of the paper’s London-based owners Trinity Mirror this afternoon. One wonders, also, what the reaction of the Wales Assembly Government - with its vast public-sector advertising budget - will be.

Whatever happened to The Welsh Globe?

[Source: Reporter, Walesnews: 02/28/08]