A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
IV. LOCAL WEEKLY and BI-WEEKLY PAPERS
Informants were asked, “How often do you see a local weekly or bi-weekly paper?”
Table 59
| How often do you see a local weekly or bi-weekly paper? | |
| % whole sample | |
| Regularly | 46 |
| Sometimes | 10 |
| Never | 42 |
| No information | 2 |
| Sample | 5639 |
Rather more than half the population see local weeklies or bi-weeklies sometimes, and the majority of these are regular readers.
Analysis by size of town
It will be remembered that people living in rural areas and in small towns saw evening papers in much smaller proportions than those who lived in large and medium sized towns (Table 46). With local weeklies and bi-weeklies the position is reversed, those in rural areas and small towns seeing them much more frequently.
Table 60
In the diagram below the proportions of those living in different types of districts who saw local weekly and bi-weekly papers are compared with the proportions seeing newspapers.
Analysis by Region
In considering the results for different regions the differences pointed out above should be borne in mind, some regions having large and others small proportions of their population living in rural areas and small towns.
Table 61
The South, South West, South East and East Anglia show relatively high proportions reading local weeklies and bi-weeklies regularly. In all these regions a large part of the population lives in rural areas and in small towns.
The North shows a very low proportion reading such papers regularly, and the proportions of regular readers in the North East, London and the North Midlands are also rather low. The proportions reading evening papers regularly in these regions were above average.
Wales shows an average proportion reading local weeklies and bi-weeklies and the proportion reading evening papers was low.
Scotland shows higher than average proportions reading both types of newspaper.
Analysis by Sex and Age
No marked differences are shown between the sexes or between different age groups in readership of local weekly and bi-weekly papers.
The youngest age group (14- 17) shows a slightly lower proportion reading these papers regularly than do other groups, but this difference, which is the same in the case of both boys and girls, is only small.
Analysis by Economic Groups
Table 62
The upper economic groups read local weeklies and bi-weeklies in slightly lower proportions than the lower groups.
This difference is only small but is statistically significant. Calculation of X 2 gives a value of X 2 =10.77, P = less than .02, showing that a difference of this size would be expected to occur by chance in only about two samples out of a hundred if no differences really existed.
Analysis by education group shows no statistically significant differences.
Analysis by Occupation
There are some differences in the proportions reading local weeklies and bi-weeklies in different occupation groups.
Table 63
A high proportion of agricultural workers see this type of paper and it will be remembered that local papers had a high readership in rural areas. Workers in heavy manufacture and miners show a relatively low proportion of readers. The proportion of managerial and professional workers reading local weeklies is rather above average but the difference between this and other groups is not so great as was the case with morning papers. Otherwise there are no very marked differences.
How local papers were obtained
Of those who saw local weeklies or bi-weeklies 32% bought copies, 54% saw copies that came into the house and 13% saw other people’s copies.