The national papers and Scotland

The importance of the national press

The media

British people watch a lot of television. They are also reported to be the world's most dedicated home-video users. But this does not mean that they have given up reading. They are the world's third biggest newspaper buyers; only the Japanese and the Swedes buy more.

Newspaper publication is dominated by the national press, which is an indication of the comparatively weakness of regional identity in Britain. Nearly 80% of all household buy a copy of one of the main national papers every day. There are more than eighty local regional daily papers; but the total circulation of all of them together is much less than the combined circulation of the national 'dailies'. The only non-national papers with significant circulations are published in the evenings, when they do not compete with the national papers, which always appear in the mornings.

Most local papers do not appear on Sundays, so on that day the dominance of the national press is absolute. The 'Sundays papers' are so-called because that is the only day on which they appear. Some of them are sisters of a daily (published by the company) but employing separate editors and journalist.

The morning newspaper is a British household institution; such an important one that, until the laws were relaxed in the early 1990s, newsagents were the only shops that were allowed to open on Sundays. People could not be expected to do without their newspapers for even one day, especially a day when there was more free time to read them. The Sunday paper sell slightly more copies than the national dailies and are thicker. Some of them have six or more sections making up a total of well over 200 pages.

Another indication of the importance of 'the papers' is the morning 'paper round'. Most newsagents organize these, and more than half of the country's readers get their morning paper delivered to their door by a teenager who gets up at around half-past five every day in order to earn a bit of extra pocket money.

There is an exception to the dominance of the national press throughout Britain. This is in Scotland, where one paper, the Sunday Post, sells well over a million copies. Another weekly, Scotland on Sunday, also has a large circulation. There are three other notable 'Scotland only' papers, but two of these, the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, are quality papers with small circulations and the other, the Daily Record, is actually the sister paper of the (London) Daily Mirror. The other national British papers are all sold in Scotland, although sometimes in special Scottish editions.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-05