Newspaper sales go up and down for all sorts of reasons at this time of year so you have to look at the year-on-year changes for an accurate picture and it is not a pretty one, even with bulks left in.
For nearly all the national newspapers, February was a short and brutal month. Even allowing for fewer sales days it saw widespread falls compared with the autumn months before Christmas. Annual trends remain significantly down.
For the Daily Mirror, a 12-month fall of 11.59% represents a far worse slide than the tabloid sector average of about 5%. Following its cover price increase, nearly 175,000 readers have deserted in the past 12 months, an unsustainable rate of attrition. In contrast, the Daily Star was the only daily national to post a year-on-year rise in sales, of 7.85% to 780,742 copies and a 1.59% increase over January. But the crucial fact here is that it reduced its price to 20p, compared with the Mirror's 45p.
The Sun continues to manage decline less than most with a drop of 3.99% over 12 months, but that means it is back under 3m.
At the other end of the market there is a similarly wide range of figures. At 205,964, the Independent is doing slightly better than in October and November but that is still a whopping 18.41% down from a year ago.
In contrast, the Times, which lost 10,000 readers from January to February, has only fallen by 0.86% over the 12 months. The two other 90p qualities are suffering proportionally more, with the Telegraph seeing a 5.16% fall to 821,943 and the Guardian down 4.33% to 340,238.
Of course, some may argue that the Daily Mail is the real competitor for the Times. The former's annual fall of 3.33% is not catastrophic, although its main mid-market rival, the Express, went down by less at 2.9%. Mail executives would point to the actual sales figures, which for the Mail are still a healthy 2,218,547 compared to the Express's 715,280.
Britain's best-selling paper is the News of the World, which was just 0.37% down from January but a substantial 7.97% lower over the year at 3,019,928. At this rate the UK will soon have no paper selling more than 3m copies.
Trinity Mirror's Sunday tabloids fared worse, with the Sunday Mirror down 9.07% annually and the People down 10.46%. Like its daily sister, the Sunday Star continues to benefit from a low cover price, with sales down just 1.74% over 12 months at 360,143.
As you move upmarket, the Sunday figures for February compared with January look slightly rosier, although the gloss comes off when you juxtapose them with the annual rates. So the Sunday Express was "only" 1.72% down on the month, but minus 5.96% annually. The Mail on Sunday was more solid, losing 0.2% in February and 0.85% since 2008.
The Independent on Sunday and Observer must have been cheered by monthly rises of 0.39% and 0.58%, but the Sindy is still down a colossal 21.28% yearly and the Observer 7.26%. The Sunday Telegraph lurched down 3.91% last month, part of a 6.03% decline over 12 months.
The Sunday Times is the exception, with a 1.27% increase from January, up 0.66% over the year at 1,214,254. An indication, perhaps, that a high cover price need not devastate sales.
These figures are just one indicator and don't take into account online readership. You will also have noticed the dearth of retail and recruitment adverts in your newspapers over the last few months. The long-term trends of falling sales and migrating advertising have now been massively compounded by the recession.
The economic crisis does not seem to mean that the public stop buying newspapers at a faster rate than before. But the remaining product is generating far less revenue overall. It is a vicious cycle that continues to haunt newspaper boardrooms looking anxiously at the slow growth of income online.