Most of Australia’s leading print newspapers suffered hefty year-on-year circulation falls in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures.

In metropolitan weekday papers, the NT News and Canberra Times both posted double-digit print circulation falls (10.50% and 12.70% respectively), while The West Australian declined 8.3% year-on-year, The Daily Telegraph 7.10%, the SMH 8.70%, The Courier-Mail 7.0% and The Age 9.3%.

Australia’s best-selling weekday paper, the Herald Sun, posted a relatively small 5.3% decline. The Adelaide Advertiser and Mercury both declined only 4.8% year-on-year.

The actual audit figures show Fairfax’s SMH and Age declining by 60.9% and 49.9% year-on-year, but this is a definitional error. The Audit Bureau has begun to count digital and print subscriptions together to give a total sales figure, but Fairfax a few weeks ago stopped reporting the digital sales figures of its two biggest papers.

In national papers, The Australian posted a 3.6% print decline (but a total sales boost due to rising digital subscriptions), while the Australian Financial Review recorded a 9.8% weekday print decline. — Myriam Robin