Journalist Peter Preston writes in today's Observer that although most national papers in the UK have more male readers than female, the gap is closing fast.
A summer research study from ComScore, an authoritative digital analysis company, shows women worldwide are beginning to dominate social networking sites and to stay online longer than men. Preston says that some of that switch is having an impact on media fortunes as well.
InPublishing magazine has found that, ten years ago, about 62% of American men read a newspaper compared with only 44% of women. By 2009, that had shrunk to 47% of men, compared with 44% of women. In Japan the difference was 25%, down to a mere 2% now. In Britain the gap has shrunk from 4% to 3%.
So is this all good news for the potential, future readership of WVoN? Well, yes and no. The good news obviously is that more women are reading newspapers than before and more are going online for their news. The bad news is that in the UK, they seem to pick the Daily Mail which is about the only paper with more women readers than men.
The million dollar question, of course, is what is it that women want? As Preston points out, the mostly male editors dictate that it's more health, more families, more fashion but adds that "ritual male prescriptions are made to be overcome".
Here at WVoN that's exactly what we're going to do.
