National newspaper circulations in the United Kingdom continued to decline across the board in August year-over-year, while Sunday quality papers increase over the previous month, according to latest figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), Journalism.co.uk reported.

Sunday quality titles, including the Independent on Sunday, the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times, recorded a monthly daily circulation increase of 0.36 percent, compared to a drop of 1.83 percent in July.

Quality publications overall posted the biggest decreases year-over-year, with morning newspapers down by 12.15 percent on average and Sunday publications down 10.56 percent. The Guardian stood out with the biggest monthly decrease, while the Times' circulation fell to 494,205, down 1.67 percent compare to July's.

The Daily Mail, Daily Star and Daily Express posted month-on-month circulation rises in August. However, not even one daily tabloid managed to increase sales year over year, Media Guardian reported.

According to the latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS), 86 percent of Irish citizens are amongst the most avid newspaper readers in Europe; however, this did not help increase circulation numbers across the country.

All Irish newspapers, including daily and weekly titles listed in the latest "Island of Ireland Report" from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), showed lower circulation figures, The Irish Times reported.

According to the figures released by the ABC, The Irish Times saw a circulation drop of 7.6 percent during the period of January to June this year, with 105,742 compared to 114,488 recorded in the first half of last year.

The Irish Independent also witnessed a circulation drop of 4.8 percent, and the Irish Examiner was down 7.3 percent. Among the evening dailies, the Evening Herald saw a decrease in circulation by 5 percent, its weekend edition by 2.3 percent, and Cork's Evening Echo was down by 7.9 percent. In the Sunday editions, The Sunday Tribune witnessed the highest circulation decline of 17.2 percent, followed by Sunday Business Post with 14.1 percent and Sunday Independent by 2.5 percent.

U.S. newspapers will completely change they way they report circulation beginning October 1, following changes to circulation rules made by the Audit Bureau of Circulations' board, Editor & Publisher reported today.

The changes include newspapers now being able to count one subscribers multiple times; for example, a subscriber may be counted once for his print subscription, once for his e-reader subscription, and so on. This also includes online, mobile and other subscriptions. Another major change is that newspapers may include "branded editions" (products published under a different name, such as a commuter daily) in their total average circulation. "The board's aim is to establish a foundation for the future as more newspapers move to bundled print/digital subscription offers and hybrid publishing plans," the ABC board announced in a press release.

All UK Sunday quality papers saw circulation go down in December 2009, due to bulk distribution issues, MediaGuardian reported.

The Sunday Telegraph's December circulation slid by about 26,000 to 525,088, as it stopped selling bulk copies to airports and gyms for a nominal fee that they then give away for free. The paper's bulk copies total about 77,000 fewer than the previous year, which made circulation go down 8.72 percent year on year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Worst hit was The Observer, with sales declining 16.49 percent year-on-year to 351,019, partly because it stopped distributing bulk copies since mid-2009. Sales of the Sunday paper in December dropped 5.81 percent month-on-month.

Unlike most of its competitors, the Independent on Sunday distributed 8,580 more bulk copies in December than in the previous year. Sales totalled 155,460 in December, down 4.94 percent year-on-year and 0.68 percent month-on-month.

The Sunday Times, which had circulation of 80,000 more than its rivals combined, declined 3.76 percent year-on-year, or dropped 4.97 percent month-on-month, to 1,113,195 copies in December. It distributed more than 3,300 fewer bulk copies than one year ago, MediaGuardian reported.

In general, the total average net circulation of UK's Sunday quality market was 2,240,330, which is down 7.24 percent compared to one year ago.