The History of the Times by Graham Stewart

Author:Graham Stewart [Graham Stewart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007402618
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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While the editor made preparations for a new decade with his usual unflagging drive and enthusiasm, there was much he could look back upon in the past eighteen months with quiet satisfaction. In particular, the Saturday paper had undergone a remarkable expansion. The Times had long been a paper that serious-minded people took with them to work and this was reflected in the circulation figures. Sales had been much better during the weekdays than at the weekends. Enhancing Saturday’s sale would need significant investment but advertisers had traditionally been shy of investing in Saturday journalism, preferring the graphic-friendly glossy magazines of the Sunday papers or the daily certainties of the weekday offerings. The paper that did most to change this formula was the Financial Times. Although not naturally thought of as the journal with which to relax at the weekend, the FT successfully reinvented itself on Saturdays, pioneering the two-section format that emphasized lifestyle-focused journalism. In particular, it had a strong property section. So successful was this weekend edition that the paper began selling more on Saturdays than it did during the week. The Telegraph followed suit. Clearly there was a waiting market ripe to be explored and exploited. In Charles Wilson, The Times was fortunate to have an editor who understood the challenge.

By the end of 1988, all the national broadsheets had additional weekend sections for the Saturday editions. The Independent was the last to do so, but the launch of its second section and a weekend magazine edited by Alexander Chancellor in September 1988 made an immediate impact. Wilson’s strategy was different. Rather than introduce a colour magazine he opted to produce a four-section, sixty-four-page edition for Saturdays, one section of which was gravure-printed in colour. There was more of virtually everything too. A family money section took the place of what, during the week, was devoted to company business news. Readers were guided through the proliferation of financial services designed to make every last drop of savings go further. Apart from anything else, this was popular with the advertisers. Where, previously, the ‘Saturday’ section had merely been tagged onto the main part of the paper, ‘Review’ became a distinct third section covering the arts, live performances and books. Previewing sporting events rather than just providing match reports for the Monday paper ensured that Saturday’s fourth section, covering sport and leisure, was also much more comprehensive than what had been offered in the past. Francesca Greenoak was given more room to tend her gardening column and the general layout was greatly enhanced with watercolour illustrations by Diana Ledbetter. It no longer looked like a grubby old piece of inky newsprint. Indeed, in the last two years of the 1980s, two areas of the paper’s Saturday journalism were especially developed: the property section (unfortunately just in time for the market downturn) and the travel pages. In the latter case, the transformation was especially remarkable. What had previously amounted to a couple of articles surrounded by a stamp album of

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