NEWSPAPER SUPREMACY

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 November 1930, Page 10

NEWSPAPER SUPREMACY

STRUGGLE IN LONDON. LONDON, October 29. The struggle for the newspaper supremacy of the English-speaking world carried on for years between Lord Rothermere with his ‘Daily Mail’.’ and Lord Beaverbrook with his “Daily Express” has at last turned in favour of the Canadian peer. The “Daily Mail” is losing circulation after years of uninterrupted growth. This surprising disclosure is made by the “Daily Express” in publishing its net sales figures, showing that it has increased its readers in two years by 217,000, and now has a circulation of 1,700,000. During the same period the “Daily Mail” lost 67,000 readers, and its total is now 1,870,000. In Fleet Street the reduction of the “Daily Mail’s” lead is regarded as partly due to its owner's feud against the ex-Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, as leader .of the Conservatives, and also tho newspaper’s attempt to split the Conservative Party by running Empire Freetrade candidates. Tho “Daily Express” minority shareholdings are, of course, in the hands of tho "Daily Mail” Trust Ltd., which also has a controlling interest in some of Lord Rothermere’s companies. However, the rivalry between the “Express” and the “Mail” for circulation supremacy has gone on independently of this, and Fleet Street now forsees in a short time the Beaverbrook organ being able to boast of the largest number of readers of English language newspapers in the world. Tho “Express” expansion is' only rivalled in the rate of growth by the Labour organ, tho “Daily Herald,” which now lias nearly 1,100,000 readers, half of whom were secured in the past six months.