The Sun (United Kingdom)
The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lachlan Murdoch's News Corp.[9][10] It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner.[11] The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom,[9] but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.[12]
For earlier British newspapers of the same name, see The Sun (1792–1806) and The Sun (1893–1906).
The paper became a seven-day operation when The Sun on Sunday was launched in February 2012 to replace the closed News of the World, employing some of its former journalists.[13][14][15] In March 2020, the average circulation for The Sun was 1.21 million, The Sun on Sunday 1,013,777.[8]
The Sun has been involved in many controversies in its history, among the most notable being their coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. Regional editions of the newspaper for Scotland (The Scottish Sun), Northern Ireland (The Sun), and the Republic of Ireland (The Irish Sun) are published in Glasgow, Belfast, and Dublin, respectively. There is currently no separate Welsh edition of The Sun; readers in Wales receive the same edition as the readers in England.
History[edit]
The Sun before Rupert Murdoch[edit]
The Sun was first published as a broadsheet on 15 September 1964,[16] with a logo featuring a glowing orange disc.[17]
Circulation and profitability[edit]
The Sun dominated the circulation figures for daily newspapers in the United Kingdom from the late 1970s, at times easily outpacing its nearest rivals, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. For a brief period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this lead was more than one million copies per day.[256] In January 2000, circulation was approximately 3.5 million per day, whilst daily circulation for those rivals was around 2.3 million. Sustained decline due to digital disruption[257] began in 2004, in line with print journalism as a whole, and it lost more than a million copies from its daily figures in the six-year period from 2012 to 2018. The Sun's long run at the top was finally broken in February 2018 when it was announced that the circulation of the free Metro newspaper had overtaken it for the first time. However it remains the biggest-selling newspaper in the UK.[256]
In February 2020, it was revealed that daily sales of The Sun had fallen 8% to 1.38 million in the year to July, but at the time the publication remained the UK's biggest-selling paid-for paper. The Sun on Sunday sold an average of 1.16 million copies a week, 111,000 fewer than the year before.[258] News Group Newspapers reported that The Sun lost £68m in 2019 with sales falling as the company continued to deal with costs arising from the phone-hacking scandal.[258]
In April 2020, News UK instructed Audit Bureau of Circulations that its circulation data should be kept private, and would only be shared with advertising agencies in confidence.[259] In May 2020, The Sun's 42-year run as the top selling paper came to an end when eclipsed by the Daily Mail.[260]
In the year ending June 2020, the newspaper posted a pre-tax £202m loss, a significant increase from £67.8m the previous year. The majority of the loss, 80%, was thought to be from payments in damages from phone hacking, although revenue from sales and advertising was being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The value of the newspaper was written down by £84m, in effect to zero, with the company believing that The Sun and Sun on Sunday will not return to growth.[261][262]
Other versions[edit]
The Scottish Sun[edit]
A Scottish edition of The Sun launched in 1987, known as The Scottish Sun, recognising the distinctiveness of the Scottish media market.[264] Based in Glasgow, it duplicates much of the content of the main edition but with alternative coverage of Scottish news and sport. The launch editor was Jack Irvine who had been recruited from the Daily Record, its main rival in the Scottish tabloid market. By the mid-2000s The Scottish Sun had become the largest-selling newspaper in Scotland, overtaking the Record.[264]
At first the Scottish edition followed the London edition in supporting the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher, but in 1992 it declared support for Scottish independence.[264] It did not, however, support the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP).[264] By the time of the 1997 UK general election both the Scottish and London editions were supportive of Labour, led by Tony Blair.[264] This attitude continued throughout the Blair premiership (1997–2007). For instance, during the 2007 Scottish Parliament election the front page featured a hangman's noose in the shape of an SNP logo and stated "Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose".[264][269]
The Scottish Sun switched ahead of the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, declaring support for the SNP.[264] It took a neutral stance on the referendum on Scottish independence, commenting: "What we cannot do is tell you how we think you should vote".[268] At the 2015 UK general election, The Scottish Sun urged its readers to back the SNP. While in England and Wales, the paper saw a vote for the Conservatives as a means to "stop [the] SNP running the country", the edition north of the border said the SNP would "fight harder for Scotland's interests at Westminster".[157]
The 2019 UK general election saw the paper take a neutral stance stating that it was not backing the party for the first time since 2011 and claiming that 'There is a very real threat of Jeremy Corbyn walking into No10 on Friday and plunging Britain back to the bust ideology of the 1970s — an era of power blackouts and economic misery. The hard-left nationalisation and high-tax agenda of the crackpots who have hijacked Labour is nightmarish... Ms Sturgeon's tawdry flirting with Mr Corbyn — for a shot at securing an "IndyRef2020" that polls show a clear majority of Scots oppose — means we cannot endorse the SNP in the general election.'[267] It again chose not to endorse the SNP at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, describing it as 'a party that will undoubtedly win most seats despite being dogged by sleaze, scandals, underachievement and failures for the past five years' and arguing that Scottish voters should 'use their choices wisely in the two-vote Holyrood system to keep the SNP in check as a minority government'.[270]
The Irish Sun and The Irish Sun on Sunday [edit]
The Irish edition of the newspaper, based in Dublin, is known as the Irish Sun, with a regional sub-edition for Northern Ireland where it is mastheaded as The Sun, based in Belfast.[271] The Republic of Ireland edition shares some content – namely glamour and showbiz – with the editions published in Great Britain, but has mainly Irish news and editorial content, as well as sport and advertising.
It often views stories in a very different light to those being reported in the UK editions. Editions of the paper in Great Britain described the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) as being "designed to drag the reputation of our nation through the mud" and "the most pro-IRA ever";[272] conversely, the Republic of Ireland edition praised the film and described it as giving "the Brits a tanning".[273]
The Irish Sun, unlike its sister papers in Great Britain, did not have a designated website until late 2012. An unaffiliated news site with the name Irish Sun has been in operation since mid-2004.[274]
There is also an Irish edition of the Sun on Sunday, the Irish Sun on Sunday, which launched in February 2012.[275]
Polski Sun[edit]
Polski Sun was a Polish-language version of the newspaper which ran for six issues in June 2008 during the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament, on the days of and the days after Poland played matches. Each issue had a circulation of 50,000–75,000, in relation to the estimated 600,000 Poles in the United Kingdom at the time.[276][277]
