More daily newspapers, national and regional, are sold for every person in Britain than in most other developed countries. On an average day, nearly 60 percent of people over the age of 15 read a national morning paper and over 65 percent read a Sunday newspaper. There are 10 national morning daily newspapers, 9 Sundays, about 1,400 regional and local newspaper titles, and over 6,500 periodical publications on sale. There is no state control or censorship.
There are two types of newspaper, Tabloid and Broadsheet. Tabloids dominate the market; they provide a mainly entertainment and sports news, usually in a sensational or scandalous way, they use their own interpretation of current news issues. The Sun is bought by around 4 million people every day, four times the number who buy the highest selling broadsheet paper, the Daily Telegraph. Middle-range papers (Mail and Express) claim about a quarter of readers, with ‘quality’ newspapers (The Times, Guardian, Independent etc) less than 20%
On Sundays, the News of the World is read by up to a third of newspaper readers. It is published by News International which also owns The Sun, The Times, and the Sunday Times, and has a 40% share in BskyB. Many of the large media groups have business interests in other areas of the media (e.g. regional ITV companies, satellite or cable TV, magazines, books or regional newspapers).
In addition to national newspapers, there are also 43 million local or regional papers bought or delivered free to homes in Britain every week. (SOURCE: http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/2lesson3.htm)
Audio files:
- Introduction.
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