More free MEN than paid for
The paid circulation of the Manchester Evening News has dropped from 94,000 (July – December 2006) to 88,000 in June of this year. Meanwhile the free circulation of MEN went up from 78,000 to 93,000. Total circulation is now 181,000 (172,000 last year). (Guardian)
In May 2006 MEN closed down their free MEN Lite edition and offered the regular MEN for free in the city centre. In the MEN Lite period, the free edition had a circulation of 11,000 while the paid paper sold 140,000 copies. These data indicate that the total circulation indeed has risen (from 151,000 to 181,000) but clearly also at the expense of the paid edition (minus 52,000 in little more than a year).