Newspaper readership does drop over the peak summer months but not dramatically: Across all UK nationals the decline is less than one percent compared to spring or autumn. While business titles like the Telegraph or the Times tend to be hit harder than the red tops (where summer circulation is often up rather than down) even the hardest hit quality daily (the FT) suffers a circulation drop of less than five percent thanks to the holiday hiatus. A story that finds its way into a good business paper like The Times, for instance, will reach a little under 620,000 newspaper readers if it's published in August but a little over that figure if it's published in October.

A small drop of about three percent, but a drop nonetheless right? Well yes, if Times' readers were still stopping off at the local tobacconist for their morning news digest. But they're not. The seasonal decline in newspaper sales over the summer is nothing compared to the general decline overall as readers transit from print to iPod, desktop and Kindle.

The numbers folks down at the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) have been watching this trend for years. Way back in 1996 the bureau cleared some desk space to make room for a couple of fresh faced graduates charged with monitoring "new media"; the ABCe division that this initiative has become today is the current barometer that newspaper owners are really watching as the industry goes digital. While the old school pencil pushers at ABC are painting a gloomy picture of terminal decline for the print industry, the digital dudes over at ABCe are routinely reporting 50% plus growth online.

While readership of The Guardian's print edition last year fell by 2.67 percent for the month of July (that's 9,266 readers) record breaking hits on the title's website (20,622,063 unique users) were more than compensating for the drop.

The good news for marketing people like us is that classic news outlets like the Telegraph and the Guardian have really started to work out what works for them in real-time. They know how to captivate corporates with breaking news on movers and shakers, stock prices and the City when business is on the clock, but crucially, they've learned how to maintain or even boost readership during the summer months when business is on holiday.  The common denominator is numbers: When business is at work these numbers are about stocks, shares politics or economics (the credit crunch and Obama's election were the key web traffic drivers for UK business titles over the past winter), but when business is on vacation these numbers are about Wimbledon, the Tour de France and England test cricket.  Conveniently accessed from the iPod, netbook or desktop, it's stories about these top sports events that keep business readers happy on holiday.

While the content on offer may be high on the quirky, the opportunity to reach millions via the national media over the summer remains as valid as it is in the bleak mid-winter.