Newspaper sales quite surprised me

[Flying_Monkey]

If you want to see who the Guardian's core readership are, just look at the adverts. And it's not the struggling families that their hacks so vigorously claim to represent.

Why is this odd and why would you expect it to be?

 

[srw]

It would be interesting to get a gauge of the the average age of the buyers.

I suspect older readers would actually buy a paper in a shop and they are more likely to be engaged in local community issues than young 'uns.

Take a look at the marketing pages of the papers' websites - this sort of data is of interest to (potential) advertisers. IIRC, Telegraph and Mail readers are typically well over retirement age, while Guardian readers are affluent middle-aged professionals.

No prizes for spotting which market has more longevity.

 

[srw]

Local rags are generally better on paper than on the web, I find. There's all kinds of detail that is too unimportant to put on the web and would be hard to find but still interests a lot of people.

I pick up the local paper occasionally while I'm waiting for a takeaway. The only people it could possibly interest are people featured in the stories and people looking to buy a house.

Local papers are occasionally windows onto a lost world. I love reading the Orcadian because it's so parochial - the crime reports ("Unlocked bicycle stolen and then returned") are sui generis. Over the autumn we were in Switzerland and picked up a copy of the local freebie - a sort of Swiss Metro. One of the stories was "Train has brake failure. Passengers were 20 minutes late." They padded this out to a quarter of a page.

 

[User482]

I pick up the local paper occasionally while I'm waiting for a takeaway. The only people it could possibly interest are people featured in the stories and people looking to buy a house.

Local papers are occasionally windows onto a lost world. I love reading the Orcadian because it's so parochial - the crime reports ("Unlocked bicycle stolen and then returned") are sui generis. Over the autumn we were in Switzerland and picked up a copy of the local freebie - a sort of Swiss Metro. One of the stories was "Train has brake failure. Passengers were 20 minutes late." They padded this out to a quarter of a page.

My wife once read the local newspaper in Guernsey: there was an article about theft from a bicycle... of valve caps. The outrage!

 

[ianrauk]

I love my local rag, this is one of my all time favourite letters to the editor.

In a comment on your article online about transport extensions in the borough, Steve7 complains about the Tramlink bringing in riff-raff and undesirables to Beckenham.
We don't have a Tramlink, DLR or the Tube here in Orpington, yet our high street is overrun with this sort of lowlife.
Walk down this thoroughfare any day of the week and you will see scruffy, tattooed men and women with pot bellies.
They have cigarettes hanging from their mouths and mobile phones stuck to their ears, wandering about aimlessly.
The women can also be seen sporting the mandatory Croydon facelift while they push expensive baby carriages (courtesy of the state) occupied by their benefit babies.
They can often be observed resorting to foul language when bus drivers have to deny them access because of their oversized prams when they attempt to board crowded buses.
Orpington was once a proud town but I am afraid it has now become a repository for dregs of humanity .
I can't wait to leave.
Mick Barnes
Allington Road
Orpington

 

[GaryA]

There are local papers and there are local papers...up here I find the Evening Chronicle a waste of space (except the newcastle united news) the Journal is too business orientated- yawnsville, the Shields Gazette mixed bag... but the one that stands head and shoulders above the others is the Northern Echo; a decent mix of local (albeit more durham area) and national news with some cracking articles.

Having said that local papers have lost all campaigning zeal they ever had- they have become (Local) establishment mouthpieces...which is sad.

 

[snailracer]

Now only going by a straw poll here, but back in my newsagents this morning and chatting to the owner (who is a DM reader), and this is how the sales are going on a daily basis

2 = Guardian
20 = Daily Mail
60 = Gloucestershire Echo.

I didn't get the other numbers, but the local paper outsells all the nationals by a good margin.

I have to be honest, I was expecting there to be far more Guardian sales, but then it is easy for the perspective to be skewed here given the vocal minority of Guardian reading posters.

Anyway I learned something this morning..and wonder what the current readership of the badly selling ones will be reading when they fold (excuse the pun)

National newspapers have completely different content to local ones, so the only valid comparison is between the Guardian and the Daily Mail.
In which case, I can only assume that DM readers are simply too thick to operate a computer.

 

[ColinJ]

They don't even sell the Manchester Evening News any more - they just give it away!

 

[GaryA]

The on-line versions of the newpapers are becoming ever more sensationalist in their headlines and titilating pictures I blame the huffington post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

 

[GaryA]

Dont mention the free metro paper- Yuk
Luckily I only ever see it on bad winter days when I cant use the bike for work.

 

[ianrauk]

They don't even sell the Manchester Evening News any more - they just give it away!

Same as the London Evening Standard.

 

[jayonabike]

My sons paper round is The Times x5, Telegraph x3, Express x5, The Sun x1

 

[MarkF]

What I don't understand is, in many medium or large Spanish Cities, you have choice of local/regional papers that are as big as the Saturday edition Times. Quality newspapers in a country that doesn't sell a lot compared to the UK.

 

[coffeejo]

A friend posted this on FB today:

 

[vernon]

If you want to see who the Guardian's core readership are, just look at the adverts. And it's not the struggling families that their hacks so vigorously claim to represent.

My fellow engineering undergraduates at Leeds University came up with the theory that Guardian Readers were the staple diet of Papua New Guineans. There were loads of adverts for positions in Papua New Guinea at the time and they came to the conclusion that the adverts maintained the supply of fresh meat there.