The Sunday Times is a Sunday
broadsheet newspaper distributed in the
United Kingdom and
Republic of Ireland. It is published by
Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of
News International, which is in turn owned by
News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns
The Times, but the two papers were founded independently and only came under common ownership in 1966.
Rupert Murdoch's News International acquired the papers in 1981. Each year the Sunday Times publishes a Rich List - which tends to boost sales.
While its sister paper, The Times, holds a substantially smaller circulation than the largest-circulation UK quality daily, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times occupies a dominant position in the quality Sunday market; its 1.3m circulation equals The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday combined. It maintains the larger broadsheet format and has said that it will continue to do so.
Its price rise to £2 from £1.80 in September 2006, the second price rise in two years, has started to cause a slight month-on-month and year-on-year decline in its readership. This has been following a general decline in readership of all Sunday newspapers. To combat this rivals such as The Independent on Sunday relaunched in June 2007 with a more concise approach to its content and sections, while the The Observer has relaunched in a berliner format with colour throughout all sections.
The launch of new News International printers in Summer 2008 will allow for full colour throughout all pages in the paper.
