Scottish publishers have admitted that it has been incredibly difficult to ascertain the impact the Queen Mother's death had on newspaper sales.
Scotland's circulation directors stated that the Bank Holiday weekend, traditionally a bad time for newspaper sales, along with the clocks going forward for Summertime, made it difficult to determine to what extent the Queen Mother's death had impacted on newspaper sales.
Although all national titles carried extra pages dedicated to the Queen Mother in their Sunday editions, and supplements in the Monday titles, the newspaper market was already braced for a dip in sales as a result of the Bank Holiday weekend.
Gordon Santana, sales and marketing controller at The Scotsman Publications Ltd, said: "You have to keep in mind what else was happening. It was Easter weekend, then the clocks went forward. Both these things in isolation hit every newspaper, but together they desolate the market. We were down 2 per cent, but we could have been down 10 per cent. There certainly wasn't any frenzied buying of newspapers. The increase in our print run was only in the high hundreds, as opposed to the 28,000 extra copies we did on 12 September."
The Sunday Mail managed to get out a late edition on the Saturday of the Queen Mother's death. This edition enjoyed a 25 per cent rise in sales. However, the following Sunday afternoon edition and Monday's edition of the Daily Record remain unsure how their sales were affected.
News International reportedly took one of the heaviest hits. By increasing the editorial in the Sunday Times the paper missed its deadline and arrived at newsagents late. Sales were down to 82,090, while sales of the Scottish Sun were 318,000, with the Times selling 31,100.
General manager at News International Scotland, Colin McLatchie, blamed the combination of the Easter weekend, the clocks going forward and the lack of Premier League football games in Scotland.
The Mirror was also running a 10p cover price promotion, which McLatchie said was expected to have an impact anyway.
David Dixon, circulation director at SMG, said that on a normal holiday weekend they would lose around 10,000 sales, but due to the Queen Mother's death they only lost around 7,000 sales meaning that the Sunday Herald sold 54,000 copies, while the Herald sold 76,000 copies on the Monday.