A SNAPSHOT of daily newspapers on Tuesday has revealed that a quarter of The Herald on that specific day comprised adverts.
The snapshot was taken of both indigenous titles and London ones operating as clear Scottish editions, such as The Daily Mail but not the Daily Mirror which, despite its Scottish branding in its masthead, on Tuesday contained only a couple of Scottish stories, both by Maggie Barry.
Yesterday, allmediascotland.com found that Tuesday’s edition of The Scotsman comprised 12.69 per cent of display and classified adverts. While The Scotsman is compact size, The Herald is broadsheet.
Over the next few days, allmediascotland.com will also reveal the amount taken up by adverts in Tuesday’s editions of the Scottish Sun, the Daily Record, the Metro, Press and Journal, the Daily Star of Scotland, The Times (Scotland), the Courier, The Daily Mail and The Express.
It was not possible to say whether any of the adverts recorded were appearing at massively-reduced prices or even for free. And, of course, the Scottish editions of London-based titles included adverts sourced for UK-wide consumption.
The snapshot follows Tuesday’s reporting on allmediascotland.com of the quarterly, Bellwether, survey of company marketing budgets which recorded the biggest decrease in ad spending plans in its nine-year-history.
Only seven per cent of companies reported plans to increase their marketing, while 49 per cent said they were planning to decrease.
The advertising breakdown in The Herald revealed 15 in-house adverts, including a quarter-page advert devoted to a reader offer, to attend various horseracing meets. In its 16-page sports supplement, there was one ad: an in-house one.
The main paper comprised 34 pages and included four pages of job adverts (minus a couple of in-house ads) as ‘Society Appointments’.
On page 23, half a page was devoted to restaurant adverts, with the following page comprised more restaurant ads, plus car ads, public notices and cinema listings. Two-thirds of page 27 was taken up by family announcements, while almost half of page 30 consisted of Articles for Sale ads.
Pages 28 and 29 was an ad feature comprising adverts for independent schools, supported by editorial (taking up about two-thirds of the two-page spread).
Including the reader offer, the family announcement ads, the ad feature and the job ads – but excluding the in-house ads – some 24.65 per cent of the 34 pages was taken up by ads.
Monday-Friday, The Herald retails for 80p.
