60% of national newspaper readers have been satisfied with the coverage of COVID-19 in the national newspapers they read, while only 11% have been dissatisfied. The crisis has presented the opportunity for national newspapers to reassert their importance to people for getting reliable/quality reporting in a world of fake or unreliable online news.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a struggle for national newspaper publishers, as print circulation has dropped significantly and digital advertising revenue declined, at least initially, leading to publishers having to make significant cuts.

Boosted online engagement, across age groups, has enabled national newspapers to grow online subscriber and registration numbers significantly. Publishers will be concerned, however, that with many people facing economic hardships and the news agenda becoming less attention-grabbing than at the beginning of the pandemic, digital subscriber growth could slow down. The dominance of the major tech platforms, such as Facebook and Google, over the digital advertising market and content discovery remains a threat but the balance of power appears to be moving in a more positive direction for publishers.

National newspapers/publishers are expanding into more areas, such as radio and TV, that have a lot of potential for boosting reach and brand image. While the Netflix-style subscription service appears flawed in concept for newspapers, there are many opportunities in utilising other forms of media subscriptions, from magazines to music.

• The impact of COVID-19 on the national newspapers market.

• Forecast for the UK print circulation for national newspapers.

• National newspaper readership and purchasing behaviour.

• The main reasons people subscribe to a national newspaper online.

• The national newspaper topics people spend the most time reading about online.

The first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the UK at the end of January 2020, with a small number of cases in February. Rapidly rising case numbers led to the first national lockdown, starting on 23 March. It wasn’t until 15 June that non-essential stores were allowed to reopen, followed by pubs, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers on 4 July, and many beauty businesses on 13 July.

By September, it had become clear that the UK was at the start of a second wave, and social-distancing measures were intensified. Continued increases in infection numbers led to Wales implementing a two-week national lockdown from 19 October, England announcing a month-long lockdown from 5 November, and Scotland introducing a new five-level system of coronavirus restrictions.

Despite these restrictions, however, case numbers continued to increase. All four UK nations tightened restrictions in January 2021, effectively leading to a full UK-wide lockdown.

On 22 February, Boris Johnson announced the roadmap to an easing of restrictions in England, starting with the reopening of schools on 8 March, followed by easing of restrictions on outdoor gatherings on 29 March, and with a hoped end to all restrictions by 21 June. The Welsh and Scottish governments also gave more details on their plans to ease restrictions, with both nations taking a slightly more cautious approach to the one planned for England.

The UK’s vaccination programme started on 8 December 2020, and with the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines licensed for use in the UK, the government aims to offer a first dose of the vaccine to 32 million people by mid-April.

Mintel’s economic assumptions are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s central scenario included in its March 2021 Fiscal Sustainability Report. After the fall of 9.9% over the course of 2020, the scenario suggests that UK gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 4% in 2021, and 7.3% in 2022.

GDP isn’t expected to return to pre-COVID levels until the second quarter of 2022, although this is six months earlier than the OBR forecast in November 2020, mainly because of the faster than expected roll-out of vaccines.

Unemployment is expected to peak at 6.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021. As with GDP, this is more positive than the OBR’s November forecast, but the OBR does raise the prospect of long-term scarring on employment, especially in the more exposed retail and hospitality sectors.

For the purposes of this Report, national newspapers are defined as those newspapers that are circulated throughout the UK (United Kingdom) and their digital operations. In most respects this Report adheres to Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) practice when determining which newspapers are national.

The term ‘circulation’ refers to the number of copies of a print newspaper that are sold or delivered to consumers.

The Report uses the ABC classifications of Popular, Mid-market and Quality throughout.

Currently, as monitored by ABC, the three sectors include the following titles:

Popular: Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Daily Record, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday, Daily Star Sunday, Sunday People, Sunday Mail, Sunday Mirror.

Mid-market: Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express, The Sunday Post.

Quality: The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, i, The Times, Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, iWeekend.

Specialist national sports papers such as the Racing Post are excluded.

Mintel classifies the London Evening Standard and the Metro titles as regionals. These titles are explored in Mintel’s Regional Newspapers: Incl Impact of COVID-19 – UK, August 2020 Report.

Only print national newspapers are included in Mintel’s market size and forecast figures as there is not enough consistent data available from ABC regarding digital national newspapers in order to calculate a digital market size.

Mintel covered the early impact of the pandemic on national newspapers in detail in its National Newspapers: Incl Impact of COVID-19 – UK, May 2020 Report.