A SNAPSHOTof advertising in the Scottish Daily Mail has found that a fifth of the paper was taken up with adverts.
The review, of last Tuesday’s edition of the paper, found three full pages for Tesco supermarket (as in the case of most other newspapers that day) plus nine in-house ads, many for reader travel offers.
The review is part of an allmediascotland.com trawl of both indigenous titles and London ones operating as clear Scottish editions.
Already, allmediascotland.com has found that last Tuesday’s edition of The Scotsman comprised 12.69 per cent of display and classified adverts, while The Herald’s total – on the same day – was 24.65 per cent. The corresponding figures for the Metro, Scottish Sun and Daily Star of Scotland were 26.49 per cent, 28.05 per cent and 23.91 per cent. The Courier’s total, even including in-house ads, was 14 per cent.
allmediascotland has still to reveal the amount taken up by adverts in last Tuesday’s editions of the Daily Record, Press and Journal, The Times (Scotland) 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 review follows last week’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.
Last Tuesday’s 80-page edition of the Scottish Daily Mail also included – like The Herald – an advertising feature on independent schools, running to three-and-a-half pages of ads plus half a page of supporting editorial.
Excluding the in-house ads, but including the education ad feature, some 20.05 per cent of the paper’s content was given over to advertising.
The Scottish Daily Mail retails, Monday-Friday, for 45p.
