A survey covering Britain’s estimated 1.5 million managers has revealed that the Daily Mail is their newspaper of choice.
Approximately 3,000 executives were interviewed for the British Business Survey, which is underwritten by The Economist, the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times.
It found that the Daily Mail was the most popular newspaper, read by 23.2 per cent of respondents, with 20 per cent saying they read The Times, 15.5 per cent The Daily Telegraph and 13.4 per cent the FT.
The Sunday Times was found to be the favourite Sunday newspaper, read by 31.2 per cent, followed by The Mail on Sunday on 28.1 per cent, The Sunday Telegraph on 14.4 per cent and the News of the World on 13.8 per cent.
A Daily Mail spokesman said: “The survey shows that in the marketplace of newspapers, businessmen know the Mail’s the best buy.
“It also gives the lie to all those broadsheet newspapers such as The Guardian which constantly denigrate the Mail as a tabloid. “The fact is the Mail has more upmarket readers than any other newspaper.”
However, the FT used the detailed breakdown of the figures to say it was still the newspaper of choice for the business elite. According to the FT, the survey results show that it is read by more chairmen and chief executives than any other broadsheet daily.
A spokesman said: “The survey confirmed that more people looking for jobs in the top earnings bracket are likely to read the FT than any other UK newspaper, more FT readers have an MBA than any other UK newspaper, and that FT readers have a higher average personal income (£71,913) than any other UK broadsheet.”
The survey also ranked the readership of weekly magazines and found The Economist to be most popular, read by 8.9 per cent, followed by Computer Weekly on 8.2 per cent, Time (7.4 per cent), Computing (6.7 per cent) and New Scientist (5.3 per cent).
The most popular website among managers was www.ft.com, with 11.6 per cent saying they had visited it in the last month.
The next most popular websites were those of The Times (8.7 per cent), The Guardian (7.2 per cent) and The Daily Telegraph (5.9 per cent).
By Dominic Ponsford
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