EVENING PAPERS FIRST

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 26 May 1915, Page 6

EVENING PAPERS FIRST

THE PEOPLE'S PREFERENCE

' « "The paper of the future is the evening paper," said John Bright. . And time seems to be proving the accuracy of his forecast, tor, even granti ing the vast circulations and influence of a few morning papers-, statistics f-rove. that it is the evening paper which h. the more popular organ in this country as a whole (wrote A. W. Peet, , editor of' Soli's (World Press), in the London Daily Chronicle a few weeks ago. . There are, as a matter of fact, only ; 36 towns in the British.lsles that can i* support a morning paper, while "evenings" are published in double this j number, and whereas there are a exI elusive of purely sporting and comI jnercial papers, only 78 British mornk ing journals, there are no fewer than; 116 "evenings." Take the thickly populated industrial districts in the North, and you will find that in a centre such as Manchester the biggest evening paper has a circulation equal to that of the three morning journals, despite the fact that the latter cover a much wider area, while there are also two other afternoon periodicals. Three adjacent towns cannot support a . morning: paper, but they have one or more flourishing "evenings" in the Lan-

cashire Daily Post, of Preston, the: Blackburn Northern Daily Telegraphi| (circulation 70,000), Bolton Chronicle I and News, and the Oldham Chronicle: and Standard. as are the Liverpool morning papers, their two■ evening contem-- ;< poraries circulate' between them three; and four times as many copies, while the proportion can be taken as aibout' two to one in favor of the "evenings" in such centres as Leeds in the North and Bristol in the South, each with a couple of morning and a couple of evening papers. Ireland, it must be admitted, sßercs a little more partial to morning papers, for she can publish ten morning and nine evening- journals, though the Belfast Telegraph and the Dublin evening papers are excellent, but, in direct contradiction of the accusation that -evening papers are not serious or substantial productions, we find that they predominate in Scotland and set a, standard for all the country. Edinburgh can only put the Scotsman on its breakfast-table, while it offers the Dispatch and News for evening consumption. Glasgow, with the Herald and Record in the morning, has at night the News, Citizen, and Evening Times. These three fine papers share between them a circulation of close on three-quarters of a million. This is roughly the population of the City of . Glasgow, so that it is obvious that their circulation and influence must extend considerably outside its borders, for not even the most optimistic circulation manager would include every woman "and child as a potential purchaser, even though it is in the realm of the home that the evening paper has its particular pulling power. Some idea of the appeal of the evening paper in England is obtainable from the following list of towns, besides those already mentioned, which can support one or . more evening papers, but no morning journal. These are: Barrow (1), Bath (2), Bournemouth (1), Burton (2), Carlisle (1), Coventry (1), Derby *(2), Gloucester (1), Grimsby (1), Halifax (2), Lincoln <1), Middlesbrough (1), Newport (Mon.) (2), Northampton (2), Nuneaton- (2), . Penzance (1), Stoke (1), Sunderland (1), Wolverhampton (2), and Worcester (2). The figures, for America emphasise still more strongly the popular preference of the evening paper.