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US and UK Media Trends INTRODUCTION In this assignment, we have taken a closer look at the trends in the American and British media. We have chosen to focus on Newspapers, Television and The Internet. In our analysis we have compared the dominating media trends in the UK and the US as well as tried to position the countries in a more global perspective. Firstly, we will study the development and trends of the British and American newspapers. Secondly, our objective is to explain the main differences between the two countries as television is concerned. Lastly, we will try to give some background information and through e-commerce exemplify, Internet’s position in the US and UK. BRITISH AND US NEWSPAPERS The newspaper is still an important medium, but there can be no doubt that its role in the lives of people has been diminished by the growing impact of radio, television and the Internet. The newspaper has been through tough times over the last years. Strong competitions from other medium, especially the Internet, have been a big challenge. Questions like: What message does a newspaper medium send to consumers? What consumer messages do the Internet, radio, and television media send? Should we stick to what we're good at, publishing newspapers, or must we migrate our focus to multi-media? These are problems British and US newspapers have to deal with nowadays. In the last years, after the 11th of September and the IT-bubble crack, newspapers have again gained more popularity. A trend reversal is occurring in the content business: print-based newspapers are becoming interesting again while on-line magazines and newspapers have lost a lot of their users and advertising market. Still newspapers remain a major source of information on matters ranging from details of important news events to human-interest items, after competing with radio broadcasting in the 1920s, the television in the 1940s and the Internet in the early 21th century. British newspapers Britain’s first newspapers appeared over 350 years ago. The earliest newspapers printed mostly foreign news, but later the papers published domestic news. Clerks who reported the debates of the English Parliament started papers. Unlike in some European countries, the Britain’s newspapers now as then received no government subsidy. And the vital income has always been advertising. In Britain newspapers are the largest advertising medium, and that’s pretty unique compared to the rest of the world. Today there are approximately 130 daily and weekly newspapers in Britain. More newspapers, proportionately, are sold in Britain than in almost any other country. Even though they have suffered a reduction in the number of readers in recent years, on average two out of three people over the age of 15 read a national morning newspaper. Examples of national daily newspapers are: The Sun, Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Express, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. All these newspapers, which are the six largest daily newspapers in Britain, have a circulation of over 11 million. Compared to this, are the Sunday newspapers more popular to read. The six largest weekly newspapers are: News of the World, The Mail on Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People, The Sunday Times, and Express on Sunday. These newspapers have a circulation of about 14 million. In Britain, as almost anywhere else in the world today, a few large publishing groups own nearly all the national newspapers. The most significant of these are News International, owned by Rupert Murdoch. He is born in Australia and he is called the press tycoon. This concentration of ownership has caused some concern as to whether the public are guaranteed an objective view in the newspapers. The first sign of this trend were noticeable in the early 1980s when News International purchased The Times. It marked a shift in that paper from a right of centre but independent to a more openly right-wing position. And this took place when there was a right-wing flavour of the Conservative governments in the 1980s. Another example is that Murdoch and News International owns the TV channel Sky Television. In their newspapers you can read about TV programs and there are proved that for example a movie has been better mentioned in the Newspaper from Murdoch than in other Newspapers owned by other companies. That’s so worrying is that News International owns the papers read by over one third of the newspaper-reading public. In Britain we have an obvious distinction between tabloids, often called popular, and quality newspapers. Here we have a main difference in content and lay out. The tabloids have less news and more focus on gossip, emotion and scandal. They are also smaller with large illustrations, bold captions and a sensational prose style. Often are these newspapers filled with a lot of advertisements, sometimes covering 80% of the newspaper. By contrast we have the quality papers that are often called “broadsheets.” They emphasise news coverage, political and economic analysis together with social and cultural issues. US newspapers The first American daily newspaper came out in 1783 after the Revolution. It was called the Pennsylvania Evening Post and Daily Advertiser. A rising trend was about to happen from now. By 1800, there were about 20 daily newspapers. By 1900, there were over 2000 daily newspapers in the United States, but this was also a peak. In the middle of the 19th century six New York City newspapers joined together and created Associated Press, the country’s first news agency. After the Civil War, American Press expanded rapidly because they served newspapers with many different political views. In the US, there are about 1700 daily newspapers printing a total of 63 million copies, and almost every copy is read by at least two persons. In addition to this about 7000 weekly newspapers are also published, with a combined publication of approximately 40 million.
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