On Thursday i presented my newpaper and radio analysis... heres the written version.
The Daily Mirror is a national newspaper that was founded in 1903 as a newspaper specifically for women. It is a left wing, pro labour, tabloid newspaper and is mainly concerned with entertainment news. It is owned by Trinity Mirror who also own several other newspapers including The Sunday Mirror, The People and the Daily Record.
The newspaper currently has a circulation; the average number of copies distributed daily, of 1,215,081, for October. The paper had 3,166,000 readers, between January and June 2010, however newspaper sales are steadily declining. The Daily Mirror readers are almost evenly split between male and female with males making up 52% of the readers and females making up 48%. The majority of the readers are also from the C2DE social grade, (59%) and only 41% from the ABC1 social grade. Of the C2DE group, the majority of the readers are also at the lower end of the scale, 31% are from the DE category. Most of the audience are also 65 years old or older (28%), much older than I would have though, as the newspaper puts entertainment high on the news agenda. However between the other age groups the percent of readers is very evenly spread. The majority of the readers are also from the area of London.
Readership age | Percent (%) |
15-24 | 13 |
25-34 | 13 |
35-44 | 13 |
45-54 | 17 |
55-64 | 15 |
64+ | 28 |
Readership social grade | Percent (%) |
AB | 14 |
C1 | 24 |
C2 | 30 |
DE | 31 |
Readership location | Percent (%) |
Anglia | 9 |
Central Scotland | 1 |
London | 24 |
Central | 18 |
Wales and west | 12 |
Granada | 20 |
Yorkshire | 12 |
The news agenda of The Daily Mirror is mainly entertainment and celebrity news and television as the readership are more interested in this than serious news, and therefore serious news is placed in second in news agenda importance. The readership is mainly of the DE category and therefore many will be in low paid jobs or relying on benefits to provide their families. TV and celebrity news therefore becomes important and by placing a celebrity such as Cheryl Cole on front of the newspaper, or an X-Factor exclusive, the paper is much more likely to sell than a serious news story. Clever tabloid headlines are used such as ‘Wagner booted out’ with a large photograph to grab the celebrity loving readers into buying the newspaper, only to find the story isn’t as shocking as the headline makes out. As the paper is pro labour, much of the audience will also be, and therefore stories attacking Conservative ruling are also high on the news agenda. Playing on the fact that many of the readers will be on benefits, the paper often attacks benefit cuts to enrage the readers and sell even more copies. There are some serious stories, however these also include clever headlines to attract the reader with headlines such as ‘Terror flying’ used to describe a plane accident which injured no people, to make people buy the newspaper, automatically believing that there has been a terrorist attack.
Typical stories within the paper would include an X-Factor exclusive as the main story, followed by celebrity night life, a serious story, celebrity interviews and a story attacking the Conservative government. TV, gaming, cinema and music guides are also included as the readers are extremely likely to be interested in these subjects, coming from the C2DE category.
Advertising within the paper is also closely linked to the readership as most of the adverts are for shops advertising their cheap deals, such as Asda, Tesco’s and Morrison’s, places where this readership are likely to buy their food. There are also a few Marks and Spencer’s adverts and some Sainsbury’s but these are limited, for the smaller group of ABC1 readers. Adverts also include games consoles, DVD’S and music. This contrasts to newspapers such as the Financial Times, The Times or The Guardian; all broadsheets which have adverts relevant to the ABC1 readership: Cars, watches, wine and more expensive food shops such as Marks and Spencer’s and Waitrose.
Radio Solent
Radio Solent is a local BBC radio station which broadcasts to Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight. It first aired in 1970, and is mainly concerned with local news; however it does have some national news. It currently has an average of 272,000 listeners every week, and therefore has a much smaller audience to that of the Daily Mirror. As Radio Solent is a local radio station and not commercial it does not have any commercial adverts from companies using the radio station to sell their product, unlike commercial radio stations such as ‘Heart’ or ‘Kiss’.
The target audience of Radio Solent is split evenly between male and female listeners, 50% of the listeners are male and 50% are female. Despite Radio Solent refusing to give me any facts or figures to support the claims about their audience, they told me that the majority of their listeners are of the ABC1 social grade and are mostly aged between 45-70; a slightly older and higher social grade than that of the Daily Mirror.
The older social grade of the audience is able to be seen when listening to the news bulletins. Unlike radio stations such as BBC Radio 1, which has a much younger target audience, mainly aimed at teenagers, the presenters and newsreaders do not use colloquial language or slang as this would not be understood by the older listeners of Radio Solent, therefore they use much more formal language. Also unlike Radio 1, there is no background music playing underneath the news as the news agenda is much more serious and therefore the older listeners want to listen to the details of the news, rather than the less serious news of other radio stations which appeal to a younger audience.
The news agenda of the radio station is serious national and local news, there is very little celebrity or entertainment news as the target audience are not interested in this and would prefer serious news stories. This contrasts greatly to that of the Daily Mirror. Local events, topics and matters are high on the agenda of Radio Solent who are based locally and therefore this is the news which is most relevant to the audience. There is also emphasis of importance on local travel news and weather. There is only a small section of sport on Radio Solent; however this seems to be more national news. There is however commentary and updates for local teams on Saturday.
The running order of stories is almost the same every week, beginning with national news for the first few stories, before moving onto local news later in the bulletin, with a greater emphasis on this news. Typical stories for the national news at the begging of the bulletin include the main story of the day, such as government cuts, whereas local news has more of a relevance of the listener. The news then moves onto travel, weather and then ends with a few sports stories such as football or rugby.
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