NEWSPAPERS IN GREAT BRITAIN. More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and eleven national Sunday

More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and eleven national Sunday ones. While the more serious newspapers have a lot of home and international news, some of the more popular 'tabloids' concentrate on the more spectacular and scandalous aspects of life in Britain.

Quality newspapers appealing mainly to the upper and middle classes are "Financial Times", "The Times", "The Guardian", "The Daily Telegraph". "The Daily Telegraph" contains reports on national and international news, gives a full covering of sports and other topics. "Financial Times" is read mainly by professional and business people as it contains a comprehensive coverage of industry, commerce and public affairs. "The Guardian" gives a wide coverage of news events and reports on social issues, the arts, education, etc. "The Times" is the most famous newspaper. It is not actually the oldest newspaper in Britain, but some years ago it celebrated its two hundredth birthday. "The Times" represents the views of the establishment and is well-known for its correspondence column.

Popular, tabloid newspapers are smaller in size and contain many photographs. Unlike quality newspapers popular newspapers are not so serious and their stories tend to be sensational. "Daily Express", "Daily Mirror". “Daily Mail", "Daily Star", 'The Sun' are popular newspapers. They have a national daily circulation and appeal mainly to the working and middle classes. "Daily Mirror" supports the Labour party. 'The Sun' has a larger circulation than any other daily newspaper.

Although newspaper sales have fallen slightly over the past few years, newspapers have an important effect on public opinion. Most British newspapers are owned by big businesses and although they are not directly linked to political parties, there are strong connections. The majority of newspapers -even those which carry little serious news -are conservative in outlook.

The old image of London's Fleet Street as the centre of the newspaper printing and publishing world has changed, and in fact all the big newspapers have moved from Fleet Street to more modern premises. New technology has altered the whole shape of the industry, with changes in the production process and a reduction in the number of employees.

One of the beneficial results of computerised production has been improved graphics and photographs, a development first seen in The Independent, founded in 1986 and Britain's first new quality newspaper since the last century. The tendency has been for newspapers to become smaller but to contain more pages. Sunday papers have colour magazines and several of the dailies have weekend supplements, perhaps because people now have more time to read them. Competition for circulation is intense and newspapers have tried several methods to increase the number of people who read them, including the use of colour, competitions and national bingo games. Running a newspaper is an expensive and competitive business and several new papers started and failed during the 1980s. Overall, the number of people reading newspapers has declined in recent years.

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