Scottish newspapers

There are more than 160 Scottish papers. Links are given to the parent companies. This page concentrates on paid titles, covering:
Best-selling newspapers in Scotland
Title Owner Circulation
(2005)
Daily Record Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd (Reach group) 471,708
Evening Times (Glasgow) Newsquest (Herald and Times) 95,121
Press and Journal (Aberdeen) Aberdeen Journals Ltd (DC Thomson, was Northcliffe) 88,599
The Herald
(Glasgow)
Scottish Media Newspapers (SMG) 80,273
Courier and Advertiser (Dundee) DC Thomson & Co Ltd 83,186

Source: ABC (abc.org.uk)


Scottish newspaper publishers

Aberdeen Journals Publisher of one of the top five Scottish papers, the Press and Journal. Owned by Dundee-based DC Thomson, having been sold by Northcliffe Newspapers, part of Daily Mail General Trust plc, in 2006. Under Northcliffe, it had run its website as Thisisnorthscotland.co.uk
DC Thomson Dundee-based group founded in 1905. Famed for newspapers such as the Courier and Advertiser and Sunday Post; magazines such as the Scots magazine; and comics such as the Beano (founded in 1998). Bought Surrey-based Puzzler Media, which publishes 50 puzzle magazines, including 280,000-a-month selling Puzzler Sudoku, for £85m in December 2005. DC Thomson was the last newspaper publisher to have an editorial office on Fleet Street. They left in 2016, leaving just magazine advertising sales staff behind. The names of two of its papers, The People's Journal and the Dundee Courier, are inlaid into the brickwork of the building at 185 Fleet St.
Johnston Press (now PJI Media) Johnston Press, one of the biggest groups in the UK, collapsed in November 2017. Administrators sold the group's assets to JPI Media Group, a company set up by the publisher's lenders. Johnston once owned the Yorkshire Post and more than 300 other titles, and 90 websites using the 'Today' branding, such as Jobstoday and Pocklingtonpost. Based in Edinburgh and dates back to 1767. Listed on the London stock market since 1988
Scotsman Publications Bought by Johnston Press in 2005 from the Barclay brothers' Press Holdings Ltd (profile). Publishes The Scotsman (which has a free archive of the period 1817 to 1920), the Edinburgh Evening News and Scotland on Sunday (launched August 7, 1988) from Edinburgh. Sunday paper went tabloid in 2005
Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd Based in Glasgow and controlled by Reach group. Daily Record is the largest-selling Scottish paper, claiming a readership of half the Scottish population. The first paper in Britain to carry extensive colour (1971).
Newsquest (Glasgow Herald and Times) Publishes the Glasgow-based Herald (founded 1784) and Evening Times (founded 1876) and Caledonian magazines. Launched Sunday Herald on 7 February 1999 with 50,000 sales target within a year (launch case study of the Sunday Herald). Newsquest profile
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Related newspaper bodies

ABC (abc.org.uk) Audit Bureau of Circulations. Audits sales of big Scottish papers. Registration required (free)
All Media Scotland portal for journalists and media professionals
NRS National Readership Survey. Measures readership (as opposed to sales) of major papers and magazines
The News Media Association represents newspaper publishers across the UK
Scottish Newspaper Society represents the interests of the Scottish newspaper industry