Postscript

Who are you?

Patrick Marnham

WWith the publication this week of a report by Market & Opinion Research International, light is shed on one of the great mysteries of the day: who are the readers of the Spectator?

It has long been known that Spectator readers were an unusual group of people simply because it has proved so hard to increase their number. In 1975 sales had dwindled to 12,000 and this represented (as we now know from MORI) 26,400 readers; for one characteristic of the Spectator reader is that he or she likes to hang on to his or her copy. Other magazines multiply their sales figures by five to arrive at their readership; in our case this is not possible. You, are all too mean.

During the great editorial push of the Seventies your numbers rose to 39,600 (sales of 18,000) and for a few happy months we thought there was an unlimited quantity of you out there. Then ... nothing. We seemed to have gathered you all in. We could not find reader number 39,601 and it was generally agreed that we needed 59,400 of you (sales of 27,000) to look forward to an assured and profitable future.

The great editorial push was followed by the great business push of the early 1980s, which is still in full swing. So far this has achieved a further increase of 8,800 readers (sales of 22,000) and MORI shows why you are giving us such a hard time.

In the first place, readers of the Spectator actually read it: 80 per cent of all readers, and 96 per cent of subscribers read through every issue. This immediately distinguishes

you from the average modern magazine reader whose attention span — thanks to the brain-damaging effect of television - prevents him from reading anything longer

than three sentences. (In this connection it is interesting to see that the Spectator is ad-

dictive, the longer you have been reading the paper the more likely you are to read it compulsively.) You also appear to be a lazy lot: 16 per cent of you took three holidays last year, and nine per cent of you took four or more. You are unhealthy (your only ex- ercise is gardening) and you are greedy: 29 per cent of you eat out at least once a week in licensed restaurants — as opposed to only six per cent of the average ABs (higher social groups) in the country.

All this good living has at least enabled you to develop your cultural interests. The most remarkable fact to emerge from the

survey, in my opinion, is that the readers of the Spectator are among the most cultured

people in the country. When contrasted with average ABs on annual visits to the theatre, an art gallery and the opera your figures respectively were 76 per cent (48), 72 per cent (33) and 38 per cent (10). You also confound conventional wisdom in that 51 per cent of readers claim to have bought a book as a result of reading a review of it in the magazine. It is one of the oldest saws in publishing that no book review ever sold a book since Arnold Bennett laid down his pen.

But perhaps the most important clue as to why you are so hard to find lies in your attitude to foreign affairs. When asked whether we allocated the right amount of space to articles on foreign affairs, 75 per

cent of you said 'yes' and many of you asked for more such articles. The Spectator already allocates a much higher proportion of space to foreign affairs than most publications. The British are notoriously in- capable of taking an interest in anything further away than the end of the national nose. But there you are, the tiny group of cosmopolitan exceptions.

To sum you up, you are mean, thoughtful, idle, plump, greedy, cultivated, intelligent and urbane. And you also drink a lot. Sixty-eight per cent of you are always drinking wine, and 38 per cent of you buy it by the case. And another thing, 17 per cent of you are women. There are about 28 million females in this country, of whom perhaps 22 million can read. Precisely 7,840 of you read the Spectator; that is a true elite.