Fleet Street Cheatsheet

Most Americans probably don't realize that the newspaper ecosystem in the United Kingdom is quite a bit different than in the US.  Except for the specialist-oriented Wall Street Journal and the McPaper, US newspapers are tied to a city or metropolitan region.  In much smaller England, the national newspapers (which are all based in London) dominate.  These are divided into three separate groups according to their perceived level of journalistic standards: quality, mid-market, and tabloid.  Something else for Americans to note is an odd tradition (to this American) of having a mostly separate staff for the Sunday edition of the papers, most of which also have different names.  In Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, most of the English national papers run regional versions, and there are also a few regionally significant papers.  Here's a rundown of the national titles ordered by circulation as of March 2011 (or Sunday circulation where appropriate).

Daily Title	Sunday Title	Format	Market segment	2010 election endorsement	Circulation daily / Sun.	Owner	Notes
The Sun	n/a	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	2,817,857 / n/a	News Corp.	Murdoch; soon to launch a Sunday edition
n/a	News of the World	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	n/a / 2,664,363	News Corp.	Murdoch; defunct as of July 9
Daily Mail	The Mail on Sunday	tabloid	mid-market	Conservative	2,039,731 / 1,888,040	Daily Mail and General Trust, PLC
Daily Mirror	Sunday Mirror	tabloid	tabloid	Labour	1,155,896 / 1,063,096	Trinity Mirror
Daily Star	Daily Star Sunday	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	699,216 / 293,489	Northern & Shell
The Daily Telegraph	The Sunday Telegraph	broadsheet	quality	Conservative	626,416 / 481,941	Barclay brothers
Daily Express	Sunday Express	tabloid	mid-market	Conservative	620,616 / 533,192	Northern & Shell
n/a	The People	tabloid	tabloid	none	n/a / 477,185	Trinity Mirror
The Times	The Sunday Times	tabloid / broadsheet	quality	Conservative	446,109 / 1,031,727	News Corp.	Murdoch
Financial Times	n/a	broadsheet	quality	Conservative	381,658 / n/a	Pearson, PLC	Financial focus
The Guardian	The Observer	mid-size	quality	Liberal Democrats	261,934 / 296,023	Scott Trust	Not-for-profit
The Independent	Independent on Sunday	tabloid	quality	anti-Tory	181,934 / 153,183	Alexander Lebedev
“i”	n/a	tabloid	mid-market	anti-Tory	171,415 / n/a	Alexander Lebedev	downsized version of the Indy
Morning Star	n/a	tabloid	mid-market	none (tactical for Labour)	15,000 (?) / n/a	People's Press Printing Society	Voice of the Communist Party of Britain

Note 2011.07.15: A lot of people consider the now-defunct News of the World as the Sunday edition of The Sun. I've kept NotW separate because it is being wound up (or down), and the staff let go instead of being moved to The Sun.

Update 2011.07.15: Added the Morning Star, which is national but very small.