RAINING PAPERS ON SUNDAY
score-card on the new quality tabloid and its rivals
AFTER two issues it is possible to make a judgment on the success of the Sunday Correspondent in transforming itself into a quality tabloid, and to reappraise the overcrowded field of Sunday up-market papers in the light of it. The SC, as I shall call it (the full title is appalling and is a grave handicap for a tabloid) has made a better effort than most people expected, granted the short time John Bryant was given, and the reported fact that it more than doubled its sales last week, to over 300,000, is some reward for the effort which went into the exercise. My verdict is subject to a sombre qualification. The front page is dull, rigid and provincial looking, and in this respect the second issue was only marginally better than the first. Moreover, the typographic and de- sign weaknesses which account for the poor quality of the front are largely re- peated in the eight news pages that follow, though the quality of the news itself is high, granted the resources of a small and struggling paper. However, after this point the paper improves radically. The leader- Op-ed spread is excellent and strikes an elegant, serious note which no other Brit- ish tabloid, not even the now first-class Evening Standard, possesses. There is an Impressive `World News' section which goes some way to redeeming the inadequa- cy of the main news-pages, the books and arts are high-level (for a tabloid) and there are some strong features. Moreover, as I have noted before, the Correspondent Magazine, though ad-starved and thin, is a brave venture. Last week's article on Grove Park, the Southwark council's chil- dren's home, was the most arresting fea- ture to appear in any Sunday mag for months, and this week's issue was above average too. All in all, then, the SC is in with a chance and I expect its survival will depend on the extent to which its staff give the paper all they have over the next few weeks: it is not a newspaper anyone need be ashamed of writing for.
How stands the field, then? I will now try to mark the six up-market papers, based on the current issue and the general effect of previous ones. My system is necessarily personal, arbitrary and even a little idiosyncratic but it is, at least in honest intention, fair-minded. I award points of up to 100, divided into nine categories: front page, news, general appearance (including photos, drawings, layouts etc), leader and op-ed pages, fea- tures, books and arts (in which I include fashion and travel), business, sport, and magazine. Each is marked up to ten but news, because of its central importance in any paper, is marked up to 20. Now: let us see how this method applies to the new tabloid. I gave it only three out of ten for its front, and eight out of 20 for its news. Its appearance, taking into account the first nine pages, rated the half-way mark of five. I gave it a similar mark for sport, and six for business. Its leader-pages, however, got the high mark of eight, and so did its features. Books, arts, etc rated seven. The magazine, I felt, deserved the very high mark of nine. That makes a total of 59.
How does this compare with the Mail on Sunday, the other up-market tabloid? This paper has a strong front-page, for which I award eight points, though its news pages (despite an occasional scoop) are only so-so: ten out of 20. Leader pages and features, variable but sometimes very good, rated seven each. Books and arts are poor by quality standards and get three, while business and sport are pretty average and deserve five each. On the other hand, the MoS's magazine is also good (and funny) and rates eight. Total? Exactly the same as the SC, 59.
`Yes, the breed has changed a bit since German unification.' Now let us turn to two of the broad- sheets, the Observer and the Sunday Tele- graph. In both the quality of the news coverage has declined in the last year or so, and I give each only ten out of 20, though the Observer, which has a better laid-out and usually more striking front page, gets eight for that as opposed to the Telegraph's six. The Observer is marginally better on sport (seven as opposed to six) and margi- nally inferior on business (six to seven). It scores over books & arts (eight to six) and heavily over its magazine which, though not as good as it used to be, still rates six to the two I give for the Telegraph's pathetic Seven Days. Where the Telegraph scores is over its leader-op-ed pages, the only ones of the lot with a really distinctive character, which I award top marks of ten, against the Observer's six. Add all these up and you get a total of 64 for the Observer against 59 for the Telegraph. But then you have to bear in mind that the Telegraph, like the SC and the MoS, costs 10p less than the Observer's 60p.
Moving on to the Sunday Times and Sunday Independent, I rate both their front pages at the same highish level as the Observer's, and give them eight points each. On news, however, the Independent is only moderate while the Sunday Times, in sheet quantity and sometimes quality too, is out in front, so it scores 18 to the Independent's ten. In appearance they are both good, the Sunday Times marginally better (eight to the Independent's seven) and it also has better leader-op-ed pages (seven to six). Both the Independents have fine business coverage, and I rate the Sunday's equal to the Sunday Times at eight points. On sport, however, the Sun- day Times scores (seven to five). With my method of scoring, the Independent loses heavily by not having a magazine at all, getting no marks, whereas the Sunday Times this week had a magnificent issue with three strong features, and rates nine. On the other hand, the Independent's high-quality Review section leads me to give it high marks both for books and arts, and for features, scoring it nine to the Sunday Times's eight in both cases. That gives us a total of 71 for the Sunday Times and 62 for the Sunday Independent. In a way, these results are what you would expect. The Sunday Times, the market leader, is well in front, though not over- whelmingly so, with the old-established Observer second and the new but enter- prising Independent not far behind. The three 50p papers all get the same score. But the total spread, despite the difference in price, runs only from 59 to 71. In short: we have a highly competitive field in the Sunday quality market and, while I have my private thoughts, I am making no public bets about what it will look like by Christmas. All I will say is that the British Sunday quality reader is a fortunate con- sumer: there is nothing like this choice in any other country and long may it last.
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