Amid ever decreasing newspaper circulation figures and consumption, prices for newsprint continued their downward trajectory on the British market in January.
The downward trend on the British newsprint market does not seem to come to an end soon. Total newsprint consumption was down by 25-30 per cent in the UK in 2020 as a whole. The slump intensified towards the end of last year as stricter measures were put in place to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the second lockdown did not hit the sector as hard as the first, many newspapers have faced a downturn in their circulation. Free newspapers, in particular, suffered a sharp downswing because there were much fewer passers-by and commuters in towns and cities. Circulation figures of newspaper Metro were 45 per cent lower in December 2020 than the year before - a fall of more than 600,000 newspapers in just one month. Its competitor, the Evening Standard, put the slump at almost 40 per cent, which translates into roughly 300,000 copies.
In the light of this situation, newsprint prices had already come under sizeable pressure and decreased in the UK during the second half of last year. The latest agreements covering prices from 1 January 2021 onwards often contained more modest price cuts than on the Continent.
This article is an excerpt from EUWID's monthly report on the paper markets in the UK.
Find the EUWID Price Watch UK for January in EUWID Pulp and Paper issue no 04/2021, which will be available to our e-paper and print subscribers as of 27 January.
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