Media Studies A-level

Section A – News and Online Media

The Archive provides a clear overview of the historical context of newspapers, helping to bring to life different types of audiences and demonstrating the impact of online and digital technologies.

How have audiences for newspapers changed over time?

1. Overview

The first newspapers in Britain emerged in the early 16th century but were slow to evolve with a largely illiterate population. Several hundred years later, as the 19th century progressed, a combination of improvements in printing technology and mass education led to a boom in newspaper publishing. By the 20th century there were well established national newspapers and a raft of regional and local press.

This paper focuses largely on the national newspapers across the UK, drawing upon data and articles which can be found in the Archive of Market and Social Research. We have looked at trends across the 20th century up to 2022 when the impact of the Internet and widespread mobile phone adoption had changed the industry irrevocably.

In the first half of the 20th century data and surveys were limited. Circulation data was available but until the 1930s wasn’t produced in a consistent way across titles. Readership of newspapers was measured on occasional surveys but again the measures were inconsistent until a national readership survey was developed in 1956.[1]

Newspapers grew to be a vital medium for news, information and entertainment across the 20th century. They also became a key tool for advertisers to reach large audiences, benefitting also from the fact that each title was specifically targeted at a particular demographic audience and outlook.
As the 21st century dawned there was increasing competition particularly from online players challenging the role that newspapers had played in disseminating news and information and influencing opinion. But, newspaper businesses have adapted their offers online. Some newspaper brands reach some of the biggest audiences online in the UK. They continue to be highly differentiated and attract very different audiences from each other.

Key points:

• • A growth of newspaper audiences across the first half of the 20th century to almost universal readership by the early 1960s.
  • By the mid 20th century they were the key means by which people accessed news and information. As well as reaching large and targeted audiences for advertising they became a powerful means of influencing political opinion.
  • Newspaper titles are clearly targeted at specific audiences in terms of income, class, age and outlook.
  • Newspapers withstood competition from initially radio and then TV, retaining their importance throughout significant changes in lifestyle and society
  • By the end of the 20th century they faced the biggest change to date; the Internet was becoming widespread and the adoption of mobile phones accelerated this change.
  • In the 21st century printed newspapers are in decline but most titles have evolved and survived by adapting content and positioning. Some of the largest online sites and apps in this country are newspaper brands such as the Daily Mail or Guardian, attracting large and still targeted audiences online.

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1  The 20th Century – Pre War (up to 1939)

• • Newspaper readership grew – by the 1930s over two thirds of the British population read a newspaper each day
  • Over this period we see a growth in reading among the working classes and the success of the “popular” titles such as the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald
  • The profile of readers to each title was clearly differentiated, particularly by social class
  • Radios became more prevalent in households and provided direct competition in terms of news coverage, particularly after the launch of the BBC in the 1920s

Newspapers grew in importance over this period with both national titles and a raft of local and regional press.

Readership research was rare in the pre war era but there is a fascinating report by the London Bureau, published in 1928 “Press Circulations Analysed”, which gives us an insight into the market. In the chart below we can see household levels of readership of the main morning daily newspapers (national titles).

Some titles are recognisable, even in the modern era; others have disappeared or merged into their competitors. A good example of this is the “Daily News” which was actually founded by Charles Dickens in 1843 but by 1930 merged with the News Chronicle which in turn ceased publication in 1960 and was absorbed into the Daily Mail.

Social class* was a familiar concept in the early 20^th century and we can see clear differences in the audience to each title. While the Times was only typically read by about 3% of households on a daily basis it was clearly focused on the “middle classes”, those with more buying power and influence. In contrast the Daily Herald strongly appealed to the working class. This newspaper began publishing in 1911, initially as a daily strike bulletin in support of the printers’ union, the London Society of Compositors. Throughout its history it had links to the Labour movement and unions. In 1964 it ceased publication and later relaunched as the Sun.

* Interestingly in this study the decision on household class was made by the interviewer themselves. The researchers describe class as “buying capacity and social outlook”: “By class we mean buying capacity-plus social outlook. By middle-class we mean the well-to-do and the comfortably-off. By lower middle-class we mean people whose buying-capacity is much more limited than the middle-class, but whose social outlook and buying-habits are somewhat similar to those of people in that class. By working-class we mean the steadier types of workers.”

In the 1930s newspapers started to move more widely into the working class market and titles such as the Daily Herald and the Daily Mirror grew in popularity. And so newspaper readership widened to represent a large proportion of the UK population. By the 1930s over two thirds of the population read a newspaper every day with “almost everyone” taking one on Sunday.*

There was competition to newspapers. Radios became a more common feature in households and clearly competed with the papers in terms of news coverage. In the 1920s the BBC launched, initially they had restrictions on news reporting but these were loosened by the time of the second world war. Consequently, the news gathering operation of BBC radio expanded and it became the leading way in which news was broken. Newspapers had to adapt their coverage to stay relevant and continue their appeal to a large audience.

* Adrian Bingham: Monitoring the Popular Press (2005)

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2  Mid-Century – the 50s and 60s

• • Mid 20th century was the peak period for newspaper audiences
  • In the early 1950s around 85% of the population read a newspaper each day
  • Newspapers were highly influential and an important means of disseminating news, influencing political opinion and reaching audiences for advertising
  • Among the quality press The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times were market leaders and continued to grow
  •  TV was starting to emerge as a serious competitor for news coverage and leisure time. By the 1960s it had become a common household item.

This was the peak period for newspapers. Reading of newspapers was a dominant, mass market cultural activity. At the same time the British population was growing, adding to the numbers of readers.

* Adrian Bingham: Monitoring the Popular Press (2005). See also appendices for relevant UK population figures.

In the early 1950s, Britain was a “nation of readers,” with around 85% of the adult population reading a newspaper each day. Circulations were at their peak, driven by a high demand for news and advertising. Newspapers were a central source of information and a highly profitable industry, attracting significant investment.

Newspapers were especially important to British culture and the media landscape, more widely read than any other country. They were the main means of finding out information about the world, politics and public life.

In 1956 the first of many years of national readership research began; the Hulton Readership Survey measured all national newspapers on a continuous basis. Data from the survey shows how extensively newspapers touched the population with almost 9 in 10 adults reading a morning title (national morning/daily newspaper or regional title published in the morning) and 92% reading any Sunday newspaper.

Around this time newspapers felt the initial competition from the relatively new medium of television. Penetration of TV sets grew across the 1950s and 1960s offering more immediate news updates and competition for people’s leisure time. As a result, titles began to adapt and differentiate their offer. Quality titles like the Times, Telegraph and Guardian provided more detail and depth. Using these strategies circulations of the quality titles were maintained or in most cases grew – most notably the Sunday Times which grew to market leader by 1966.

Note: Circulations are the number of copies distributed to newsagents and retailers on an average day as given by Audit Bureau of Circulation. It is closer measure to sales than readership which measures the number of people who have read or seen a copy.

Meanwhile the popular newspapers adapted in very different ways – by moving downmarket and providing things TV did not. More scandal, more sex, more crime and celebrity coverage that TV, at the time, wasn’t covering.

Taking the example of the Daily Mail which was a mid market, highly successful title we can see consistent growth peaking in the early 1960s. After this point competition from TV and changes in lifestyle led to a decline.

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3  Gradual Decline – the 70s to the 90s

• • Newspapers remain an important medium, read by more than half of the population
  • Changes in working patterns and lifestyle impact on time available to read
  • Greater competition from TV, particularly as channels expand and viewing on demand (initially through video recorders) becomes popular
  • Newspaper titles adapt to competition and become more targeted at particular audiences – demographics and outlook
  • The decline in readership was most noticeable among C2DE households and the tabloid, popular titles
  • Readership of Sunday newspapers declined more than dailies
  • Readership among younger adults, aged under 35 started to decline from the 1980s

TV grew rapidly both in terms of household ownership and channels available to view over this period. Television offered an alternative, immediate source of news and entertainment, competing for the public’s attention and leisure time. While newspaper readership remained significant for several decades, this new medium began a slow, steady erosion of print sales. Lifestyle changes, such as more women entering the workforce and the standard 9-to-5 workday becoming less common also meant people had less time for newspapers.

While daily newspaper circulations remained largely stable over this extended period, Sundays showed a significant decline from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s. In 1965 the average circulation for the Sunday newspapers was almost 25 million; 30 years later this number had dropped by a third to just over 16 million copies.

What might have driven this change? Think about competing media, changes in leisure time and changing household dynamics.

In particular, the decline came from the popular and mid-market titles:

So who was reading newspapers? At this time we have access to more research with consistent measures of reading taken from large, ongoing surveys.

We can see that newspapers reached large numbers of the population and while these overall numbers fell from the 1960s to the mid 90s the decline was relatively slow. Again more significant among Sunday newspapers than the dailies.

How did changes in readership vary by different demographic groups?

In fact readership of daily newspapers among middle class, professional households remained pretty stable. However, among C2DEs we can see a clear downward trend in daily newspaper readership.

For Sundays the decline among C2DE households was even greater and this clearly had an impact on popular titles targeting this group such as the Sunday Mirror or the People.

A concerning indicator for all newspapers was readership among young people. From 1980 onwards the number of readers aged under 35 moved steadily downwards.

For titles such as the Daily Express with a clear older readership the dwindling numbers of younger readers was a major concern.

Readership was declining faster than the rest of the market, in part driven by the loss of younger readers. In 1965 readers aged under 35 made up about one third of the Daily Express readership; by 1995 this had dropped to just 25% of a much-reduced audience.

In contrast the Guardian, typically targeted at a ABC1, liberal minded audience retained younger readers over the same period. This put them in good stead for impending changes of the late 90s as digital media began to emerge as a serious competitor for time, attention and as a major news source.