By Stephen Mayne


We told you last week about the super-aggressive campaign News Ltd was running for The Sunday Telegraph in industry newsletter Mediaweek. Well, it has now broadened its attack in the latest issue to swipe at another group of its high profile rivals.

Page three is emblazoned with “TV Weak” in white on red before the caption: “The Sunday Telegraph, which publishes tvguide every week, is read by more than 1.8 million people. An issue of TV Week only manages 409,000. You must admit, in comparison, that’s not a very strong performance.”

Turn to page five and you get “ordinary weekend” in the familiar brown and black along with the caption: “1,872,000 people read The SundayTelegraph every week. Good Weekend
on the other hand only has 1,027,000 readers which, when you compare,
isn’t really that good at all. In fact, it’s really quite ordinary.”

Over on page seven the entire page is devoted to a high impact “Who?” with the caption: “The Sunday Telegraph
has more than 1.8 million readers every Sunday, which is a staggering
figure compared to the 292,000 readers of….um, what’s that magazine
called again?”

There are apparently more of these witticisms to come and News Ltd is spending up given that a full page ad in Mediaweek
normally costs $2,500. After the past two weeks what on earth can News
Ltd come up with next week? I’ve ranked the first five offerings from
average to very bad as follows:

“Lost by nearly 600,000: Well, at least the program stayed true to its name.”
“Who?….um, what’s that magazine called again?”
“Little Brother: Big Brother’s 344,370 viewers seem rather small.”
“Ordinary weekend: it’s really quite ordinary.”
“TV Weak: that’s not a very strong performance.”

We wondered last week if all these ads were assisting the rather positive editorial tone that News Ltd was getting from Mediaweek. Well, there was more of the same in the latest issue, with positive lines on new sports magazine Alpha, The Australian’s redesign and a new magazine in the Gold Coast Bulletin.