La Gazzetta dello Sport remains the most popular daily in Italy, with an average of 4,132,000 readers per day, according to the latest report published by the newspaper circulation auditor Audipress, Il Sole 24 Ore revealed last week.

But the sports daily, which saw its readership increase by 3.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, was not the only newspaper to gain readers. For instance, La Repubblica maintained the second position with 3,269,000 million readers and an increase of 1.9 percent.

La Stampa perceived the largest gain (12.7 percent) among the top four national dailies for a total of 1,908,000 readers, Blitz Quotidiano informed. Il Corriere della Sera was the only one that suffered losses (-5.1 percent) although it managed to maintain the third place with 2,725,000 readers.

According to Newspaper Innovation, free newspapers also registered declines. Leggo saw a drop of 9.4 percent from 2,300,000 to 1,998,000 readers; followed by City with 1.854.000 (-8.8 percent); Metro, 1,549,000 (-12.5 percent); and E Polis, 1.314.000 (-9.1 percent). Nonetheless, Leggo is the fourth most popular daily after La Gazzetta dello Sport, Il Corriere and La Repubblica.