The Times: Audience and Industries

Audience:

1) The primary readership demographic for The Times newspaper 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 that The Times readers are likely to be professionals, managers or company owners. They are inclined to be in the "succeeder" psychographic group.

2) This is evident due to the front cover consisting of mainly more text than images, which talk about serious news such as climate change (hard news), using more advanced language. This means that readers are more interested in reading up on hard news rather than soft news, e.g. gossip or scandals.

3) The Times readers are typically over the age of 55 due to the type of news they showcase on their newspapers, which is usually hard news like politics, which may not interest younger people. Also, most younger people access this news online through social media and so they have no need for print newspapers.

4) Surveillance/Information - allows us to find out what is going on in the world around us, including news, different opinions, or 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.

Diversion/Entertainment - one of the main reasons newspapers are read 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.

Personal Identity -  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 that The Times values private companies over working class people.

5) A reader may enjoy this edition of The Times newspaper as it openly exhibits its support for the Conservative Party, which most readers would likely also support. This is an example of how The Times offers personal identity to its readers. As well as this, it educates readers upon worldly issues, therefore providing surveillance/information.

Industries:

1) 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, for example the Fox network in the USA.

2) In 2019, The Times' circulation was 376,000, which was down 12% in a year and much lower than the high point of over 800,000 during the 1990s.

3) In order to counteract the decline in print sales and growth of the internet, the Times has 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. It also created a social media strategy in collaboration with the digital team to drive growth of their Twitter and Facebook profiles. In 2018, Times and Sunday Times hit 500,000 subscribers as digital outnumbered print for the first time, at an initial cost of £1 per week for a digital subscription.

4) Newspapers are regulated by IPSO (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) 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 of the PCC (Press Complaints Commission).