(1) Did you see a Newspaper last Sunday?

More people see a newspaper on Sunday than on any other day of the week. The number of people who do not see a Sunday newspaper is only about half the number that do not see a daily paper.

In general there is less variation between the habits of different groups of the population with respect to Sunday paper reading than with respect to daily paper reading.

Analysis by Sex

Like daily newspapers, Sunday papers are seen by a higher proportion of men than of women, but the difference is not nearly as marked. There is in fact only a difference of 5% in the proportions of men and of women who see Sunday papers. With daily papers the difference was 14%.

32

Analysis by Age

A similar trend is observed as in the case of morning newspapers, but again it is less marked.

The three middle groups show higher proportions reading Sunday papers and there is very little difference between the results for these three groups. There was however, a statistically significant difference between the proportions the 18 - 40 and 46 - 65 age groups that saw morning newspapers, the latter group seeing them more frequently. Also a higher proportion of the oldest than the youngest age group saw morning papers, but with Sunday papers this position is reversed.

These results suggest that Sunday papers are relatively more popular amongst younger people and daily papers amongst older people. However, the difference, though statistically significant, is small.

Analysis by sex and age shows the same trend in the case of both sexes. Amongst both sexes higher proportions in the three middle age groups saw Sunday papers and the differences between these three groups are small. Boys and girls of the youngest group saw Sunday papers in slightly higher proportions than men and women aged over 65.

Analyses by Economic and Education Groups

Analysis by economic groups shows no differences in the case of Sunday newspapers. It will be remembered that the upper and middle economic groups saw daily papers in much higher proportions than did the lower groups.

Similarly there are no differences in results for the different education groups, although those with higher education more frequently saw daily papers.

The conclusion may be drawn from this that Sunday papers are more generally popular than daily papers, the larger sections of the population, i.e. the lower economic groups and those with elementary education, reading them as frequently as the smaller groups who are greater readers of daily papers.

Analysis by Occupation

There are some differences in the habits of different occupation groups.

The retired and unoccupied group shows the lowest proportion reading Sunday papers. It will be remembered in connection with this that the older age groups read daily papers rather less than other groups. Agricultural workers also show a low proportion and this group less frequently read daily papers than did others. However, of all people living in rural areas a rather low proportion, 81%, read a Sunday paper and the result for agricultural workers may be related to the type of area in which they live.

Factory workers show fairly high proportions seeing a Sunday paper, and the managerial and professional and clerical groups show average proportions. The last two groups read morning papers more frequently than other groups.

There are no statistically significant differences in the proportions of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled factory workers who saw a Sunday newspaper.

33

Analysis by Region

It will be seen that there is very little difference between the regions. The proportion seeing a Sunday paper in Wales is rather low and a relatively low proportion saw daily papers in this region.

Other Analyses

A slightly lower proportion in rural than in urban areas saw a Sunday paper. 81% did so in rural areas as against 88% in towns.

There are no differences in the proportions who saw Sunday papers in towns of different sizes.

Analysis by marital status shows only small differences.

34

(2) Which Sunday Papers were seen?

Not only did more people see Sunday papers than saw daily papers, but more papers were seen per person on Sunday. The average number of Sunday papers seen by those who saw one or more was 1.55, and if those who did not see one are included, the average person is 1.35.

Table 53 shows the percentages of the whole sample who saw different Sunday papers.

The News of the World and The People are the most widely read Sunday papers. Nearly a third of the sample saw The News of the World . This may be compared with 19% who saw the Daily Express, the most widely read of the daily papers. The News of the World and The People together account for very nearly half of all papers seen “last Sunday”.

Next in popularity are the Sunday Express and the Sunday Pictorial . Other Sunday papers were seen by relatively small proportions.

Analysis by Sex

Analysis by sex shows only small differences. This is interesting in view of the differences shown in men’s and women’s choice of a daily paper. It may be that Sunday papers are more frequently shared by the whole family. It has already been said that a number of people saw more than one Sunday paper and it is possible that in some families one paper is taken chiefly for the husband and another for the wife, but that both read one another’s papers. The question asks “Did you see a paper last Sunday? Which paper?’’ and if papers are in fact shared by the family then the fact that there are hardly any differences in the proportions of men and of women seeing the different papers does not necessarily mean that there are no differences in men’s and women’s tastes. It may be noted that there is a small difference in the case of the Sunday Pictorial which was seen rather more frequently by women than by men.

Analysis by Age

Similarly this shows only small differences, and again it is possible that the similarity of results for different age groups is due to Sunday newspapers being more often shared by the family.

The only difference worth noting is that the Sunday Times was seen rather more frequently by the older than by the younger age groups.

Analysis by sex by age again shows little. The Sunday Pictorial appears to be rather more popular with women in the younger age groups than amongst other groups, but the difference is only a small one.

35

Analysis by Economic Groups

Considerable differences are shown between the different economic groups.

In the upper group rather more papers were seen per person than in the lower groups. (The average number of papers seen by those who saw papers is 1.7 for the upper group as against 1.5 for the lower group and the same for middle group.)

The News of the World , The People and Empire News are read more by the lower groups, and the Sunday Times , the Observer , the Sunday Dispatch and the Sunday Express are read more by the upper groups.

Of the picture papers the Sunday Pictorial is read by nearly the same proportions in all groups, and the Sunday Graphic is read rather more by the upper groups.

In the diagrams below the shaded areas represent the proportions of the population who saw various Sunday newspapers. The height of each block represents the percentage seeing them in the different economic groups, as shown by the numbers at the sides of the squares.

Lower Economic Groups = 75% Population

Middle Economic Group = 20% Population

Upper Economic Group = 5% Population

News of the World

Sunday Times

The People

Sunday Express

Sunday Dispatch

Empire News

The Observer

Sunday Pictorial

Sunday Chronicle

36

Analysis by occupation

The managerial and professional group differs from other groups in that only 15% read the News of the World, the same proportion reading The People . 19% of this group read the Sunday Times and 13% The Observer .

Clerical workers show a rather lower proportion reading the News of the World than do other groups.

Empire News is read by relatively high proportions of workers in the heavy manufacturing group (18%), the non-munitions factory group (16%) and of miners (15%). These groups form a higher proportion of the population in the North and the Midlands than in the South, and it is shown in Table 56 that the readership of this paper is confined to these areas.

Otherwise there are no very marked differences between occupation groups.

Analysis by Education

The differences between education groups correspond roughly with the differences between economic groups, but they are somewhat sharper

The News of the World , The People and Empire News are more frequently read by those with elementary education, and The Observer, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Express by those with higher education.

37

Analysis by Region

In Scotland a high proportion read Scottish Sunday papers, however British national papers are also read in considerable proportions in this region.

The North-West shows a high proportion reading the Sunday Chronicle, which is read only by small proportions in other regions. The News of the World is read less in the North-West than anywhere else.

The readership of Empire News is confined to the North and the Midlands, Scotland and Wales. The North-West shows a particularly high proportion reading this paper.

The Sunday Pictorial is more read in the South and the Midlands than in the North, and the News of the World is read rather more in the southern regions than in the northern regions.

Apart from these differences there is not very much variation in Sunday paper reading habits in the different regions. Most of the papers have a fairly evenly distributed public.

Other Analyses

Analyses made by size of town and by rural areas, and by marital status, show only small differences.

38

(3.) Supply and Distribution

As with daily newspapers, informants were asked whether the paper they saw last Sunday was the one they wanted to see, and those who had not seen a paper last Sunday were asked why they had not seen one.

The proportion saying they were unable to get the paper they wanted is very small, 1% of the whole sample, and it seems, therefore, that Sunday paper reading habits were not much affected at the time of the inquiry by shortage of newspapers. Moreover, the proportion of those who saw a paper, saying that this was not the paper they wanted to see, is also small as Table 58 shows.

Thus altogether of the sample who were unable to get the paper they wanted, two thirds of these read another paper and one third did not read a paper at all.