Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982. An Irish edition of the paper was launched in 2006. The Daily Mail was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at what is now considered the middle-market and the first to sell 1 million copies a day.

The Mail was originally a broadsheet, but switched to a compact format on 3 May 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding. On this date it also absorbed the Daily Sketch, which had been published as a tabloid by the same company. Its long-standing rival, the Daily Express, has a similar political stance and target readership, and currently has a circulation of about 740,000. The publisher of the Mail, the Daily Mail and General Trust is currently a FTSE 100 company, and the paper has a circulation of more than two million, giving the third-largest circulations of any English language daily newspaper, and the twelfth highest of any newspaper in the world.

Circulation figures according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, in October 2007 show gross sales of 2,400,143 for the Daily Mail, compared with 789,867 for the Daily Express. According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of Daily Mail readers voted for the Conservative party, compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats.