Britain's 'Sun' drops its price to 30p

The "credit crunch defying price cut", as the Sun puts it, makes the paper 10p cheaper nationally than the Daily Mirror, 20p cheaper than the Daily Mail and 5p cheaper than the Daily Star.

This huge investment in cover price marketing for the Sun comes after the title has celebrated six consecutive months of year-on-year circulation growth.

Sun marketing director Roland Agambar said: "At a time when many companies, including our competitors, are constantly cutting costs to the detriment of their product, we are constantly looking to improve our product and increase the value we give to our readers.

"This 5p price cut will mean the Sun is delivering even greater value than ever to its readers at a time when every penny counts for the people of Britain. This price cut will also be supported by continued product investment."

The Sun will invest millions of pounds in dropping the cover price as it will continue to pay retailers in England as if the paper cost 35p in a move designed to avoid alienating newsagents.

The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland with the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, standing at an average of 3,121,000 copies a day between January and June 2008 and with a daily readership of approximately 7,900,000, of which 56 per cent are male and 44 per cent female[1]. By circulation it is the eighth biggest newspaper in any language in the world,[2] one place behind its Sunday stablemate the News of the World, although their circulations are close and these places were briefly reversed during May 2008[3].