News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper division said more than 100,000 readers have paid for digital editions of the Times and Sunday Times--with about half of those being monthly subscribers.
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The Times is a daily national
newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785, when it was known as
The Daily Universal Register.
The Times and its sister paper
The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of
News International. News International is entirely owned by the
News Corporation group, headed by
Rupert Murdoch. Though traditionally a moderately
centre-right newspaper and a supporter of the
Conservatives, it supported the
Labour Party in the 2001 and 2005
general elections.
[2] In 2005, according to
MORI, the voting intentions of its readership were 40% for the
Conservative Party, 29% for the
Liberal Democrats, 26% for
Labour.
[3]The Times is the original "Times" newspaper, lending its name to many other papers around the world, such as
The New York Times,
The Los Angeles Times,
The Daily Times (Malawi),
The Times of India,
The Straits Times,
The Times of Malta and
The Irish Times. For distinguishing purposes it is therefore sometimes referred to, particularly in North America, as the 'London Times' or 'The Times of London'.
[4][5] The paper is the originator of the ubiquitous
Times Roman typeface, originally developed by
Stanley Morison of
The Times in collaboration with the
Monotype Corporation for its legibility in low-tech printing.
The Times was printed in
broadsheet format for 219 years, but switched to
tabloid size in 2004 partly in an attempt to appeal to younger readers and partly to appeal to commuters using public transport. An American edition has been published since 6 June 2006.
[4]Today
The newspaper's cover price in the United Kingdom is £1 on weekdays (40p for students at some university campus shops) and £1.50 on Saturday.
The Times's sister paper,
The Sunday Times, is a
broadsheet and priced at £2.20. Although
The Times and
The Sunday Times are both owned by News International, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp, they do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have shared the same owner only since 1967. In November 2006
The Times began printing headlines in its new font,
Times Modern.
History
The Times was founded by
John Walter on 1 January 1785 as
The Daily Universal Register, with Walter in the role of editor. Walter changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to
The Times. In 1803, John Walter handed ownership and editorship to his
son of the same name. John Walter Sr. had already spent sixteen months in
Newgate prison for
libel printed in
The Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain Continental news, especially from France, helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.
The Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its early life, the profits of
The Times were very large and the competition minimal, so it could pay far better than its rivals for information or writers.
In 1809,
John Stoddart was appointed general editor, replaced in 1817 with
Thomas Barnes. Under Barnes and his successor in 1841,
John Thadeus Delane, the influence of
The Times rose to great heights, especially in politics and amongst the
City of London. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted journalists, and gained for
The Times the pompous/satirical nickname 'The Thunderer' (from "We thundered out the other day an article on social and political reform.").The increased circulation and influence of the paper was based in part to its early adoption of the steam driven rotary printing press. Distribution via steam trains to rapidly growing concentrations of urban populations helped ensure the profitability of the paper and its growing influence.
[6]The Times was the first newspaper to send
war correspondents to cover particular conflicts.
W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the
Crimean War, was immensely influential
[7] with his dispatches back to England.
In other events of the nineteenth century,
The Times opposed the repeal of the
Corn Laws[citation needed] until the number of demonstrations convinced the editorial board otherwise, and only reluctantly supported aid to victims of the
Irish Potato Famine. It enthusiastically supported the
Great Reform Bill of 1832 which reduced corruption and increased the electorate from 400 000 people to 800 000 people (still a small minority of the population). During the
American Civil War,
The Times represented the view of the wealthy classes, favouring the secessionists, but it was not a supporter of slavery.
The third
John Walter (the founder's grandson) succeeded his father in 1847. The paper continued as more or less independent. From the 1850s, however,
The Times was beginning to suffer from the rise in competition from the
penny press, notably
The Daily Telegraph and
The Morning Post.
The Times faced financial extinction in 1890 under
Arthur Fraser Walter, but it was rescued by an energetic editor,
Charles Frederic Moberly Bell. During his tenure (1890–1911),
The Times became associated with selling the
Encyclopædia Britannica using aggressive American marketing methods introduced by
Horace Everett Hooper and his advertising executive, Henry Haxton. However, due to legal fights between the
Britannica's two owners, Hooper and
Walter Montgomery Jackson,
The Times severed its connection in 1908 and was bought by pioneering newspaper magnate,
Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe.
In editorials published on 29 and 31 July 1914
Wickham Steed, the
Times's Chief Editor argued that the
British Empire should enter
World War I.
[8] On 8 May 1920, under the editorship of
Wickham Steed, the
Times in an editorial endorsed the
anti-Semitic forgery
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as a genuine document, and called Jews the world’s greatest danger. The following year, when
Philip Graves, the
Constantinople (modern
Istanbul,
Turkey) correspondent of the
Times exposed
The Protocols as a forgery, the
Times retracted the editorial of the previous year.
In 1922,
John Jacob Astor, a son of the
1st Viscount Astor, bought
The Times from the
Northcliffe estate. The paper gained a measure of notoriety in the 1930s with its advocacy of German
appeasement; then-editor
Geoffrey Dawson was closely allied with those in the government who practised appeasement
[citation needed], most notably
Neville Chamberlain.
Kim Philby, a
Sovietdouble agent, served as a correspondent for the newspaper in Spain during the
Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. Philby was admired for his courage in obtaining high-quality reporting from the front lines of the bloody conflict. He later joined
MI6 during
World War II, was promoted into senior positions after the war ended, then eventually defected to the
Soviet Union in 1963.
[9]Between 1941-1946, the left-wing British historian
E. H. Carr served as Assistant Editor. Carr was well-known for the strongly pro-Soviet tone of his editorials.
[10] In December 1944, when fighting broke out in
Athens between the Greek Communist
ELAS and the British Army, Carr in a
Times editorial sided with the Communists, leading
Winston Churchill to condemn him and that leader in a speech to the
House of Commons.
[11] As a result of Carr’s editorial, the
Times became popularly known during World War II as the threepenny
Daily Worker (the price of the
Daily Worker was one penny)
[12]In 1967, members of the
Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate
Roy Thomson, and on 3 May 1966 it started printing news on the front page for the first time. (Previously, the paper's front page featured small advertisements, usually of interest to the moneyed classes in British society.
[citation needed]) The
Thomson Corporation merged it with
The Sunday Times to form
Times Newspapers Limited.
An industrial dispute prompted the management to shut the paper for nearly a year (1 December 1978–12 November 1979).
The
Thomson Corporation management were struggling to run the business due to the
1979 Energy Crisis and union demands. Management were left with no choice but to save both titles by finding a buyer who was in a position to guarantee the survival of both titles, and also one who had the resources and was committed to funding the introduction of modern printing methods.
Several suitors appeared, including
Robert Maxwell,
Tiny Rowland and
Lord Rothermere; however, only one buyer was in a position to fulfil the full
Thomson remit. That buyer was the Australian media baron
Rupert Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch
In 1981,
The Times and
The Sunday Times were purchased from Thomson by
Rupert Murdoch's
News International.
Murdoch soon began making his mark on the paper, replacing its editor,
William Rees-Mogg, with
Harold Evans in 1981. One of his most important changes was in the introduction of new technology and efficiency measures. In March–May 1982, following agreement with print unions, the hot-metal
Linotype printing process used to print
The Times since the 19th century was phased out and replaced by computer input and photo-composition. This allowed the staff of the print rooms of
The Times and
The Sunday Times to be reduced by half
[citation needed]. However, direct input of text by journalists ("single stroke" input) was still not achieved, and this was to remain an interim measure until the
Wapping dispute of 1986, which saw
The Times move from its home at New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road (near
Fleet Street) to new offices in
Wapping.
[13]In June 1990,
The Times ceased its policy of using courtesy titles ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes for living persons) before full names on first reference, but it continues to use them before surnames on subsequent references. The more formal style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms" is now acceptable in that section, as well as before surnames in news sections.
In November 2003, News International began producing the newspaper in both broadsheet and tabloid sizes. On 13 September 2004, the weekday broadsheet was withdrawn from sale in
Northern Ireland. Since 1 November 2004, the paper has been printed solely in tabloid format.
The
Conservative Party announced plans to launch
litigation against
The Times over an incident in which the newspaper claimed that Conservative election strategist
Lynton Crosby had admitted that his party would not win the 2005
General Election.
The Times later published a clarification, and the litigation was dropped.
On 6 June 2005,
The Times redesigned its Letters page, dropping the practice of printing correspondents' full postal addresses. Published letters were long regarded as one of the paper's key constituents. Author/solicitor David Green of Castle Morris Pembrokeshire has had more letters published on the main letters page than any known contributor - 158 by 31 January 2008. According to its
leading article, "From Our Own Correspondents", removal of full postal addresses was in order to fit more letters onto the page.
In a 2007 meeting with the
House of Lords Select Committee on Communications who were investigating media ownership and the news, Murdoch stated that the law and the independent board prevented him from exercising editorial control.
[14]In May 2008 printing of
The Times switched from Wapping to new plants at
Broxbourne, on the outskirts of London, Merseyside and Glasgow, enabling the paper to be produced with full colour on every page for the first time.
Controversy and image
Long considered the UK's
newspaper of record,
The Times is generally seen as a serious publication with high standards of journalism. It is not without trenchant critics:
Robert Fisk,
[15] seven time British International Journalist of the Year,
[16] resigned as foreign correspondent in 1988 over what he saw as "political censorship" of his article on the shooting down of
Iran Air Flight 655 in July 1988.
Its partisan opinion pieces also damage its status as 'paper of record,' particularly when attacking interests that go against those of its parent company - News International - as demonstrated by a loaded opinion piece attacking the BBC for being 'one of a group of' signatories to a letter criticising BSkyB share options in October 2010
[17]Readership profile and image
The British Business Survey 2005 named
The Times as the UK's leading daily newspaper for business people. This independent survey was sponsored by
The Financial Times,
The Guardian,
The Daily Telegraph,
The Economist, and
The Times.
The latest figures from the national readership survey show
The Times to have the highest number of
ABC1 25–44 readers and the largest numbers of readers in London of any of the "quality" papers.
[18] The certified average circulation figures for November 2005 show that The Times sold 692,581 copies per day. This was the highest achieved under the last editor, Robert Thomson, and ensured that the newspaper remained ahead of
The Daily Telegraph in terms of full rate sales, although the
Telegraph remains the market leader for broadsheets, with a circulation of 905,955 copies. Tabloid newspapers, such as
The Sun and middle-market newspapers such as the
Daily Mail, at present outsell both papers with a circulation of around 3,005,308 and 2,082,352 respectively.[6]
[citation needed] In the face of competition from the Internet and 24-hour TV news channels, by March 2010 the paper's circulation had fallen to 502,436 copies daily and the
Telegraph's to 686,679, according to ABC figures.
Format and supplements
The Times features news for the first half of the paper with the leading articles on the second page, the Opinion/Comment section begins after the first news section, the world news normally follows this. The business pages begin on the centre spread, and are followed by The Register, containing obituaries, Court & Social section, and related material. The sport section is at the end of the main paper.
Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) is a separately-paid-for weekly literature and society magazine.
Science Reviews
Between 1951 and 1966
The Times published a separately-paid-for quarterly science review,
The Times Science Review. Remarkably, in 1953 both the newspaper and its science supplement failed to report on the discovery of the structure of
DNA in
Cambridge, which was reported on by both the
News Chronicle and
The New York Times.
The Times started another new (but free) monthly science magazine,
Eureka, in October 2009.
times2
The Times's main supplement was the
times2, featuring various lifestyle columns.
[clarification needed] It was discontinued on 1 March 2010, most of its regular features being absorbed into the main paper, the puzzles into a new supplement called
Mind Games. Its previous incarnation began on 5 September 2005, before which it was called
T2 and previously
Times 2. Regular features included columns by a different columnist each weekday. There was a column by
Marcus du Sautoy each Wednesday, for example. The back pages were devoted to puzzles and contain
sudoku, "
Killer Sudoku", "
KenKen",
word polygon puzzles, and a
crossword simpler and more concise than the main "Times Crossword". The penultimate page was "Young Times", with puzzles and news for children. All these features are now found in
Mind Games.
The supplement also contained arts and lifestyle features, TV and radio listings and reviews which have now become their own weekly supplements.
The Game
The Game is included in the newspaper on a Monday, and details all the weekend's
Football activity (
Premier League and
Football LeagueChampionship,
League One and
League Two.) The Scottish edition of
The Game also includes results and analysis from
Scottish Premier League games.
Saturday supplements
The Saturday edition of
The Times contains a variety of supplements. These supplements were relaunched in January 2009 as:
Sport,
Weekend (including travel and lifestyle features),
Saturday Review (arts, books, and ideas),
The Times Magazine (columns on various topics), and
Playlist (an entertainment listings guide).
Saturday Review is the first regular supplement published in
broadsheet format again since the paper switched to a compact size in 2004.
The Times Magazine features columns touching on various subjects such as celebrities, fashion and beauty, food and drink, homes and gardens or simply writers' anecdotes. Notable contributors include
Giles Coren, Food And Drink Writer of the Year in 2005.
Online presence
The
Times and
Sunday Times have had an online presence since March 1999, originally at
the-times.co.uk and
sunday-times.co.uk, and later at
timesonline.co.uk.
[19] In April 2009, the
timesonline site had a readership of 750,000 readers per day.
[20] As of September 2008, The Times Online travel section has been partnered with VacationRentalPeople, who provide all of The Times Online's rental property listings.
Paywall
Rupert Murdoch argued that readers should pay for online content, and since July 2010,
News International requires readers that do not already subscribe to the print edition to pay £1 per day or £2 per week to access
Times and
Sunday Times content.
[21]There are now two websites, instead of one:
thetimes.co.uk is aimed at daily readers, and the
thesundaytimes.co.uk site at providing weekly magazine-like content. Free access is now restricted to public libraries subscribing to these titles and those with access to an online university library portal with free access.
The paywall has caused a dramatic decline in webpage views, with reach declining 48% in the first month alone and the Alexa ranking for the site falling 609 places
[22] Such a decline may also be seen via Google Trends. In the same period, the reach of the rival Telegraph website increased 11.2% with the Guardian seeing a 5% increase. This trend can also be seen in tabloid newspapers not in direct competition with the Times such as the
Daily Mail.
[23]Unofficial reports have stated that the new website may have, as of July 2010, only 15,000 direct paying subscribers, with another 12,500 paying for access via an
iPadapp.
[24]The Times, along with the
British Film Institute, sponsors the
London Film Festival (or more specifically, The Times
bfi London Film Festival). As of 2005, it is Europe's largest public event for
motion pictures.
The Times also sponsors the
Cheltenham Literature Festival and the
Asia House Festival of Asian Literature at
Asia House, London.
Political allegiance
The Times was a traditional
Conservative Party supporter, even after its 18-year rule in government was ended by the
Labourlandslide of 1997, but for the
2001 general election the party declared its support for
Tony Blair's Labour government, who were re-elected by a landslide. It supported Labour again in
2005, when it achieved a third successive election win, though with a vastly reduced majority.
[25] For the
2010 general election, however, the newspaper declared its support for the Tories once again; the election ended in the Tories taking the most votes and seats but having to form a
coalition with the
Liberal Democrats in order to form a government as they had failed to gain an overall majority in the election.
[26]Ownership
Editorship
Columnists and journalists
Other publications
(Times Books Group Ltd)
Biography
In fiction
References
- ^Tryhorn, Chris (9 May 2008). "April ABCs: Financial Times Dips for Second Month". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/09/abcs.pressandpublishing1. Retrieved 24 May 2008.
- ^Ben Hall; Tim Burt; Fiona Symon. "UK Election - Election 2005: What the papers said". Financial Times. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/417fa1a2-ab60-11d9-893c-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=fdb2b318-aa9e-11d9-98d7-00000e2511c8.html.
- ^"MORI survey of newspaper readers". http://www.ipsospublicaffairs.co.uk/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=755. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
- ^ abEric Pfanner (27 May 2006). "Times of London to Print Daily U.S. Edition". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/business/media/27paper.html. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
- ^Jeffrey Meyers (26 May 2000). "Fighting, fornication and fiction". Times Higher Education (News Corporation). http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=156212§ioncode=26.
- ^ Claire Lomas, "The Steam Driven Rotary Press, The Times and the Empire"
- ^ Philip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth-maker from the Crimea to the Gulf War II
- ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War page 217 London: Basic Books, 1999 page 217
- ^Treason in the Blood, by Anthony Cave Brown, 1995.
- ^ Beloff, Max "The Dangers of Prophecy" pages 8-10 from History Today, Volume 42, Issue # 9, September 1992 page 9
- ^ Davies, Robert William "Edward Hallett Carr, 1892-1982" pages 473-511 from Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 69, 1983 page 489
- ^ Haslam, Jonathan "We Need a Faith: E.H. Carr, 1892-1982" pages 36-39 from History Today, Volume 33, August 1983 page 37
- ^ Alan Hamilton, "The Times bids farewell to old technology". The Times, 1 May 1982, pg. 2, col. C.
- ^"Minute of the meeting with Mr Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation". Inquiry into Media Ownership and the News. New York: House of Commons Select Committee on Communications. 17 September 2007. pp. 10. http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/us.doc.
- ^Fisk, Robert (2005). The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.. London: Fourth Estate. pp. 329–334. ISBN1-84115-007-X.
- ^"Viewpoint: UK war reporter Robert Fisk". BBC News (BBC). 2005-12-03. Archived from the original on 2005-12-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20051208212035/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4393358.stm.
- ^"The Times hits out at BBC over BSkyB takeover letter". Guardian News and Media Ltd. 13th October 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/13/the-times-bbc-bskyb.
- ^ An analysis of The Times reader demographic (based on NMA figures, news agenda and advertising in the paper) can be seen in this study.
- ^"Timesonline.co.uk Site Info". Alexa. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
- ^Debbie Hindle (6 April 2009). "Times Online travel editor insight". BGB. http://www.bgb.co.uk/times-online-travel-editor-insight/. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
- ^"Times and Sunday Times websites to charge from June". BBC News (BBC). 26 May 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8588432.stm.
- ^Timesonline.co.uk Site info Alexa
- ^Telegraph.co.uk Site info Alexa
- ^Dan Sabbagh (July 18, 2010). "Times paywall: the numbers are out (should we charge for this?)". Beehive City. http://www.beehivecity.com/newspapers/times-paywall-the-numbers-on-the-street-should-we-charge-for-this180712/. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
- ^"Which political parties do the newspapers support?". Supanet.com. http://www.supanet.com/business--money/which-political-parties-do-the-newspapers-support--25923p1.html. Retrieved 2010-10-27.
- ^Stoddard, Katy. "Newspaper support in UK general elections". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/04/general-election-newspaper-support. Retrieved 2010-10-27.
- ^The Times Editors From Times Online July 16, 2007
- ^ Detail from Harold Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983 ISBN 0 297 78295 9
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