ENGLISH ARTICLES

Types of Newspapers

The traditional role of newspapers has been to deliver prompt, detailed coverage of news as well as to supply other information and features that appeal to readers. The vast majority of newspapers are daily publications serving a local community. However, weekly, national, and special-audience newspapers have special characteristics that can be valuable to advertisers.

Daily Newspapers

Daily newspapers, which are published each weekday, are found in cities and larger towns across the country. Many areas have more than one daily paper. Daily newspapers are read by nearly 60 percent of adults each weekday and by 68 percent on Sundays.28 They provide detailed coverage of news, events, and issues concerning the local area as well as business, sports, and other relevant information and entertainment. Daily newspapers can further be classified as morning, evening, or Sunday publications. In 2002 there were 1,468 daily newspapers in the United States; of these, 48 percent were evening papers and 52 percent morning. There were also 913 Sunday newspapers, most of which were published by daily newspapers.

Weekly Newspapers

Most weekly newspapers originate in small towns or suburbs where the volume of news and advertising cannot support a daily newspaper. These papers focus primarily on news, sports, and events relevant to the local area and usually ignore national and world news, sports, and financial and business news. There are nearly 8,000 weekly newspapers published in the United States, and they have an average circulation of close to 6,000. Weeklies appeal primarily to local advertisers because of their geographic focus and lower absolute cost. Most national advertisers avoid weekly newspapers because of their duplicate circulation with daily or Sunday papers in the large metropolitan areas and problems in contracting for and placing ads in these publications. However, the contracting and scheduling problems associated with these papers have been reduced by the emergence of syndicates that publish them in a number of areas and sell ad space in all of their local newspapers through one office.

National Newspapers

Newspapers in the United States with national circulation include USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. All three are daily publications and have editorial content with a nationwide appeal. USA Today, which positions itself as “the nation’s newspaper,” has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the country, at 2.3 million copies a day. The Wall Street Journal sells over 1.8 million copies a day and is an excellent means of reaching businesspeople. National newspapers appeal primarily to large national advertisers and to regional advertisers that use specific geographic editions of these publications. For example, The Wall Street Journal has three geographic editions covering 18 regions in which ads can be placed, while USA Today offers advertisers the opportunity to run ads in its national edition or any of 25 regionals.

Recently the New York Times was classified as a national newspaper rather than a regional publication by Competitive Media Reporting, which has developed a new policy on how it defines national newspapers.29 This policy states that a paper must publish at least five times a week and have no more than 67 percent of its distribution in any one area. More than 33 percent of its display advertising must come from national advertising categories, and more than 50 percent of its advertising must come from national advertisers. Designation as a national newspaper is important to major newspapers in attracting national advertisers. IMC Perspective
12-4 discusses the battle among the Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today to be the leading national newspaper.

Special-Audience Newspapers A variety of papers offer specialized editorial content and are published for particular groups, including labor unions, professional organizations, industries, and hobbyists. Many people working in advertising read Advertising Age, while those in the marketing area read Marketing News. Specialized newspapers are also published in areas with large foreign-language-speaking ethnic groups, among them Polish, Chinese, Hispanics, Vietnamese, and Filipinos. In the United States, there are newspapers printed in more than 40 languages.

Newspapers targeted at various religious groups compose another large class of special-interest papers. For example, more than 140 Catholic newspapers are published across the United States. Another type of special-audience newspaper is one most of you probably read regularly during the school year, the college newspaper. More than 1,300 colleges and universities publish newspapers that offer advertisers an excellent medium for reaching college students.

Newspaper Supplements

Although not a category of newspapers per se, many papers include magazine-type supplements, primarily in their Sunday editions. Sunday supplements have been part of most newspapers for many years and come in various forms. One type is the syndicated Sunday magazine, such as Parade or USA Weekend, distributed in hundreds of papers throughout the country. Parade has a circulation of over 35 million; USA Weekend is carried by more than 350 newspapers with a combined circulation of over 22 million. These publications are similar to national magazines and carry both national and regional advertising. Some large newspapers publish local Sunday supplements distributed by the parent paper. These supplements contain stories of more local interest, and both local and national advertisers buy ad space. The New York Times Sunday Magazine is the bestknown local supplement. The Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, and Los Angeles Times have their own Sunday magazines. In some areas, papers have begun carrying regional supplements as well as specialized weekday supplements that cover specific topics such as food, sports, or entertainment. Supplements are valuable to advertisers that want to use the newspaper yet get four-color reproduction quality in their ads.