From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> At 08:04 PM 8/7/01 +0100 Robert Shaw wrote:
> >The UK has a free market in newspapers, but no monopoly, in
> >contradiction to what your explanation would seem to predict.
> >The situation is more complex than that.
> >
> >The UK newpaper market is segmented by lifestyle not
> >geography, but even within each segment there are multiple
> >papers in direct competition with each other.
>
> Out of curiosity, are these *daily* newspapers?
>
Yes.
> I'm asking because I think that there may be a cultural difference in
> terms. For example, _The Economist_ (a notable British publication)
> refers to itself as a "newspaper", whereas in the States we would call it
> most definitely a magazine.
The Economist uses a legal definition of newspaper but is still commonly
referred to as a magazine.
The Observer is only published weekly, on Sundays, but it's definitely
a newspaper. The Sunday papers in general are technically not the same
papers as their weekly counterparts, having different editorial staffs, but
are mostly lumped with them.
At the top end of the daily market there are The Times, the oldest; The
Guardian,
which is strongly socialist; The Telegraph, strongly conservative; and
The Independant, established in the late eighties. These are all broadsheet
papers, which don't use obvious promotional gimmicks and downplay
celebrity gossip. The Independant has a policy of never publishing royal
stories.
In the mid-market there are two tabloids, the Mail and the Express, which
have been repeatedly switching the circulation lead for over a century.
They make a reasonable attempt at serious news coverage but they
have more celebrity gossip and cartoon strips than the broadsheets,
and they are more likely to offer big cash prizes.
At the bottom there are the Sun, the Mirror, and the News of The
World, which contain little serious news or analysis apart from sports
coverage. Their pages are dominated by celebrity gossip, diets, and
suchlike. It's these papers that were notorious for topless page 3
pictures.
The papers in each segment mostly compete only within each
segment. The chances of Telegraph readers switching to the
Mirror overnight, or vice versa, is pretty near zero.
--
Robert
