Blog tasks: The Times Case Study - Audience and Industries

 Blog tasks: The Times Case Study - Audience and Industries


Create a blogpost called 'The Times - Audience and Industries' and then work through the following questions:

Audience

1) What are the main audience demographics for The Times newspaper? Add as much detail as you can.
The Times target audience is older with over half the audience aged 55+. In terms of social class, they are overwhelmingly in the ABC1 social classes - 62% from social group AB. This means Times readers are likely to be professionals, managers or company owners. They are likely to be in the Succeeder psychographic group. 

2) What aspects of the front page of the Times CSP edition suggest that their readers are likely to be more educated and interested in hard news rather than entertainment?
The Times is right-wing and supports the Conservative Party. It is generally against the left-wing Labour Party. The Times newspaper will act as a voice for the establishment (the wealthy and powerful) and will not support anything that threatens major changes to the status quo.

3) Times readers are mostly over 55 years old. Why is this and how is this reflected or challenged by the design and news stories in the CSP pages we have studied?  
A Daily Mirror reader will probably think very differently from a Times reader. Even if a reader does not always agree with a viewpoint the newspaper puts forward, they may still be agreeing with the values being shared. The Times newspaper seems to endorse the Conservative party and show their strong affiliation with the political party by the way stories are constructed. The way businesses are represented also shows the Times values private companies over working class people. 

4) What are the main audience pleasures offered by the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory.
Diversion/Entertainment
One of the main reasons we read newspapers is for entertainment. The Times has evolved over recent years to contain more stories that provide entertainment or diversion. It also targets people with disposable income and an interest in culture/status and how they are perceived. 
Surveillance/Information 
The main reason we read newspapers is to find out what is going on in the world around us.  News, different opinions, information about current affairs. This includes British politics and Britain's place in world politics and economics (patriotic). The Times focuses on hard news that we expect from a broadsheet newspaper - politics, economics, world news etc.
Becoming an active participant 
Increasingly newspapers, especially online editions, encourage audience input through comments and email. The audience are not targeted with informal language or direct address as often, leading to a distance between journalist and reader. This encourages less dissent and comment and therefore more passive audience members who will accept the dominant view point of the paper. 


5) Why might a reader enjoy this CSP edition of the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory categories and write as detailed an analysis as you can.
They may feel like a more sophisticated and intelligent person by reading a newspaper like that as usually more upper class people tend to read information with hard news rather than soft news.

Industries

1) Who owns the Times? Write the name of the company AND the billionaire who owns the company.
The Times is owned by News UK (a subsidiary of News Corporation). News Corporation is a conglomerate mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian media mogul with many business interests worldwide such as the Fox network in the USA.  

2) What was the The Times's circulation in 2019? How many papers did the Times used to sell back in the 1990s? You can find all of these statistics in the blogpost above.
The Times circulation in 2019 was 376,000, down 12% in a year and much lower than the high point of over 800,000 in the 1990s. Since 2020, The Sun and The Times have not published their circulation figures, perhaps to prevent knowledge of how many readers they have lost.

3) How has the Times reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet? Watch the two videos above for more on this.
Moved towards a multi-platform landscape. This means that it publishes and synchronises across its print, desktop and mobile platforms. Some newspapers (e.g. The Times) have a paywall on their online content. The Times has had a hard paywall since 2010, but it often experiments with making content available for free. Last summer, it began free registrations and has been adding around 30,000 a week.

4) What does IPSO stand for and what is IPSO's job?
IPSO stands for the Independent Press Standards Organisation. 
The role of IPSO is to:
  • Regulate 1500 print and 1100 online titles.
  • Listen to complaints about press behaviour.
  • Help with unwanted press attention.
  • Advise publication editors .
  • Provide information to the public.
  • Provide a journalist whistleblowing hotline.

5) Why do some people want stronger regulation of British newspapers? Look at the information above on newspaper regulation to find out more on this.
There is currently a heated debate in the media regarding whether the newspaper industry requires stronger regulation. Some people argue that the newspaper industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself using IPSO and that stronger, statutory regulation should be introduced instead. This would also implement the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry which followed the phone-hacking scandal. There are links in the extension tasks below if you would like to read more about the newspaper regulation debate.

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