Dorset Echo sales up, Bridport & Lyme Regis News down

CONGRATULATIONS to the Dorset Echo! Its circulation in the second half of 2009 went up by 2.1 per cent to 18,396. According to The Guardian, the Echo is the only regional daily in the country to increase its circulation; according to the Echo itself, it’s “just one of two titles in the industry to grow its sale”. Either way, in the current climate, it is a tremendous achievement. You can see the official ABC report by clicking on this link.

The Bridport News (which, in circulation terms, includes the Lyme Regis News) is down to an average sale of 9,627 across every month of 2009. That’s a drop year-on-year of 116 copies from 9,743 (I was wrong in a comment on another story on this website to rely on my memory and suggest the circulation was 10,001).

Anyway, a drop of 116 copies doesn’t look too bad but the month-by-month figures for 2009 make far more interesting reading. As the official ABC certificate reveals, circulation crept up from 9,451 in January 2009 to a peak of 10,054 in July, and then it went down every month apart from one, until by December it was 8,837. The run up to Christmas can disrupt sales – who wants to spend Christmas Day reading a tedious “Review of the Year” in their local newspaper? – but even so that is a big drop. Hence perhaps the BN’s New Year offensive with more pages, new features, a fresh masthead slogan, and so on.

The Western Gazette is down over the last six months of 2009 to an average of 30, 789 (in December it was 29,192). Over the last two years the Gazette’s circulation has dropped by about 5,000.

Its West Dorset edition now sells on average 2,663 copies; the Sherborne edition shifts 2,841.

The population of West Dorset is about 97,000.