The Times Audience & Industries: blog tasks

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?

Bulky paragraphs and large amounts of text with minimal images or colour, as well as a more sophisticated vocabulary for highly educated readers

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?  

This is reinforced by the simplistic design and heavy focus on hard news, which older audiences stereotypically prefer

4) What are the main audience pleasures offered by the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory.

Entertainment/diversion - 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 Times 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.

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.

A reader of The Times might enjoy this edition because it not only informs the of current affairs and the political climate of Britain, but it also provides entertainment with side stories and mini advertisements

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

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?

Independent Press Standards Organisation, regulate newspapers, deal with unwanted press attention and complaints about press behaviour

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