Irish Times sale falls by 9% and Irish News overtakes the Belfast Telegraph

The Irish Times suffered another dramatic drop in circulation, according to the latest ABC statistics on Ireland's newspaper sales.

Over the six months from January to June this year, the Dublin-based newspaper saw its average daily sale fall by 9% to 84,201 compared to 92,565 in the same period of 2012.

By contrast, its main rival, the Irish Independent, slipped by only 3.9%, down from 125,986 to 121,120. But that headline figure includes almost 15,000 bulk sales - copies sold to airlines and hotels at a fraction of their cover price.

The third-placed Irish national daily title, the Cork-based Examiner, lost a further 5.8% of its sale year-on-year, with a six-month average sale of 37,897.

The Sunday nationals also registered decreases. The best-selling Sunday Independent was down 2.6% with average sales of 232,494. The Sunday World's sale of 211,161 copies represented a loss of 6.9% while the Sunday Business Post circulation fell by 6.7% to 38,293.

In the north, the Belfast Telegraph was the big faller. The Independent News & Media title slipped below the 50,000 mark for the first time, recording a daily average of 49,228, which was 8.6% fewer than the year before.

But the Telegraph sold only 40,000 at its full cover price. More than 8,500 copies were given away for free at pick-up points.

The Irish News did much better, restricting its loss to 3%. With a paid-for sale of 40,842 it can now lay claim to be the largest-selling daily title produced in Northern Ireland - a significant moment in the paper's history.

The third-placed Ulster News Letter, which lost 6.5% of its circulation in the course of the year, sold 20,755 copies a day.

All of Ireland's local and regional paid-for titles, in the north and in the Republic, saw their sales fall, including the Dublin Herald (down 4.3%), the Cork Evening Echo (down 12.3%) and the main edition of the Donegal News (down 5%).