Print sales of the Daily Record have dropped below the significantly important figure of 50,000.
During May as Celtic won two Glasgow Derbies and added two more trophies print sales dropped by 4% to an average of 49,673.
Bizarrely the Sunday Mail saw an unexpected rise by 1% to 48,292 which was probably due to some old school Celtic fans buying to relive the Saturday results.
Year on year both titles have lost 16% of their sales which is in line with the industry average as the digital reality hits home.
Introducing a billionaire from Motherwell in 2011 coupled with The Vow in 2014 accelerated the decline of the Record.
As recently as October 2005 the Record was selling 454,427 copies per day, in less than 20 years almost 90% of those sales have been wiped out.
The first column is average daily sales, the second colum is the change month on month, the third year on year.
The Record remains influential due to the resources put into their digital edition but while advertisers used to sink thousands into print they now scatter their budgets far and wide with the Record audience no more appealing than any other.
Celtic’s domination of honours over the last decade has been a hammer blow to the Glasgow based publisher who only required a pre-season defeat to roll out the cracked crest and HOOPS IN CRISIS spreads.
The days of folk hanging around garages waiting for the first edition are long gone, just like vendors going round pubs to provide tomorrow’s news tonight.
A check on a smartphone provides the latest news with many far more trusted and reliable sources available rather than the legacy publishers.
Bizarely Celtic still set aside special access for publishers like the Record which is embargoed until 10.30pm at night.
Exclusive player access is given although Brendan Rodgers ditched his usual slot after Keith Jackson decided to publish details of an off the record tactical briefing given to newspaper reporters. No other newspaper published the detail but Rodgers pulled the plug on that privilege.
Despite social media carrying all of the news from the European Championships the Record has sent over two reporters to cover the action from their unique standpoints.
While The Sun are producing a fairly professional daily video from Germany the Record seem to think that they can engage with a new audience through what looks very similar to a stag-do video that starts with two middle aged men drinking pints for breakfast.
CLICK HERE for circulation report in the Press Gazette.
CLICK HERE for Keevins performs incredible u-turn on Rodgers as he accuses Celtic fans.
CLICK HERE for Santa Ponsa celebrates Celtic’s victory in the Glasgow Derby.
